It is very rare for me to not finish a book, especially one I've been given to review, but at 65% I can safely say I will put this down permanently.

My issues with this book were not the same as I've seen in other reviews. I was familiar with the musical, so I did not have a preconceived notion of how the plot should go. I also didn't really notice how the multiple authors affected the tone and pace of the story, I thought they blended in quite nicely. Though the writing itself was quite awkward, I have to admit. However, my main problem was that I could not connect with or ultimately care for the story not the characters. Maybe I've outgrown this style of teenage fiction. Maybe it wasn't for me.

Absolutely beautiful tale of adolescent loneliness and the messy ripples of untruths. Buy this for your favourite young people in your life and they will love you for it.

DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

Dear Evan Hansen, 

Things work out. Liars don’t rest easily. Bad can never be good.

No one deserves to be forgotten, but Connor was an outcast. More alone than not. A label for his lonesomeness.

That is until Evan Hansen and the story he spins...

—-
The book was good, not too lecturing or high and mighty. Even the worst things weren’t spelled out as so and it really makes you think there’s a greater low.

I couldn’t get behind Evan and his lies. I thought it too great a crime. I wanted to hear more about Connor and his relationship with his sister...
What happened to him was distressing and I felt Evan just exploited a vulnerable family in their time of grief.

I received this book through NetGalley for review consideration.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley. 

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. 
Natalie.

This novel, based on the award winning show, is about a boy who is isolated at school and who unexpectedly find himself at the centre of a suicide drama. Asked by his therapist to write a letter to himself, one of the most honest letters is picked up the known school rebel, who later commits suicide with the letter on him. The latter's parents assume that it was directed by their son to his best friend Evan, and Evan find himself inextricably locked in the drama that develops in the school and in the boy's family, forced to create and perpetuate a lie that the two boys were friends.

Told warmly with a great insight into teen psyche, this a must read coming of age novel that targets the importance of family, friends, but also honesty and the need for us to be able to be ourselves. A must read.

Perfect for fans of the stage show. I read this after seeing the show in London and the book was just as heart breaking. This book will move you to tears

Read May 19

Just to clarify I had never heard of the musical before reading this and I haven’t listened to any of the music since. A boy – Connor Murphy – takes his own life and is found with a note in his pocket addressed “Dear Evan Hansen”. Evan is a loner who has issues with anxiety. One of his therapy tasks is to write letters to himself. Connor steals his letter and this is found with his body. Along with Connor having signed the cast on Evan’s broken arm this leads Connor’s parents, and later everyone else, to believe that Connor and Evan were best friends when in reality they barely knew each other. I like the way the story unfolded from the dishonest way that Evan creates fake emails between himself and Connor with a friend’s help to the fact that he uses his new popularity to create the ‘Connor Project’, a website to raise money and help those with mental health issues. Evan’s growth throughout was brilliant, but I think – especially due to a stage show’s nature of focusing only on a few people – that character development in the side characters suffered a little bit, I’d have liked more on them.

I found this  book to be terribly sad at times. It also offers positivity in these days of Covid 19. I did struggle emotionally at times but in all, it was a lovely read.

Here's the thing, I've seen this show and I really enjoyed it ... okay, that's a lie. I loved it. I felt for Evan in everything that he did, understanding - though not really liking - his actions, we've all been in a situation where we just keep digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole. 

However, as a book, I didn't like it. The writing was mediocre. It felt a typical from screen to page adaptation, where the writing doesn't fully understand the characters and the plot. Not giving them a true heart and soul. 

In my opinion, it didn't add much to the story as a whole. Even with the additional scenes which now, I can't really remember. 2.5 stars.

Wow! Just Wow! I originally requested this and then admittedly didn't get very far with it, but after seeing the stage show in London ( and crying my eyes out) I had to give it a second shot -  no idea what was wrong with me the first time, but this book is beautiful. A must read for anyone and I defy you to read it without crying.

Dear Evan Hansen is a conflicting novel. Based on the musical of the same name, this book follows a boy called Evan Hansen as he gets accidentally dragged into a pretty bizarre situation.

Evan Hansen’s therapist has recommended that he writes letters to himself in an attempt to give himself a more positive outlook on life. Unfortunately for Evan, he prints one of his letters off at school, where it’s discovered by the brother of the girl who he has a crush on. Connor questions why Evan is writing about his sister, then takes the letter with him… And when he commits suicide that evening, his parents find the letter in his pocket and assume that he had written his suicide note to Evan, not realising that Evan had written the letter to himself.


Do you see what I mean by a ‘bizarre situation’ now?

Sadly, Evan’s anxiety is so bad that he doesn’t know how to correct Connor’s parents, so he goes along with it. Yep. Evan Hansen pretends to be a dead guy’s best friend to avoid upsetting said dead guy’s parents.

I really enjoyed the first half of this story, because Evan’s reactions to the situation are so genuine. As soon as he gets himself implicated it spirals out of control very rapidly – he can’t say no to going to the wake because that would be rude; he can’t say no to dinner with Connor’s parents because that would be horrible – but then Evan starts dating Connor’s sister, Zoe, and that was the moment where I became a bit less enthused by the direction the story was going in.

To start with Evan is just trying to comfort the Murphy family, but as soon as he starts dating Zoe it reads more that he’s taking advantage of their son’s suicide to improve his own situation in life. I loved the fact that Evan teamed up with a couple of schoolfriends to host a memorial for Connor – no one should be forgotten about after committing suicide, and raising awareness of mental health and depression is never a bad thing – but the more that I read the more uncomfortable the story made me.

It wouldn’t have been as bad if Evan had experienced some kind of retribution, but he gets away pretty unscathed. I actually think I would have found the story more satisfying if his deception hadn’t come out at all, because the reveal was such a non-event.

That being said, there are a few chapters sprinkled throughout which are told from Connor’s perspective, and these are fascinating. He gives us an idea of why he decided to end his life, and comes to terms with the choice that he made in a very poignant way. I actually think I might have enjoyed this book more if it had been written entirely from Connor’s perspective and he had been watching Evan’s deception play out, because the few times he sees what Evan is up to he is just as confused as the reader is by Evan’s choices.

I’ve read a few other reviews for this one and have gathered that most people dislike the novel and enjoy the musical far more, so I am still interested in potentially seeing this one on the stage. The concept is so good, and I can tell that the writer has obviously done their best to raise awareness of mental health, but something about it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long and kept getting overlooked. But it seemed a good choice to read during lockdown so finally got its chance to shine. And what a book it turned out to be! At times the book is unbearably sad and it’s depiction of parental grief is perfectly crafted. But what you ultimately take away from it is a positive message of hope and optimism, of the good in all of us and that each day is worth getting through even at its most challenging. It’s just what we need in these difficult days.

TW: suicide, depression, anxiety

I’ve heard very mixed things about this book, I’ve seen a lot of people absolutely love it, but also a lot of people not enjoy it at all, so I wasn’t sure which was it would go for me. And in fact it ended up being slap bang in the middle, as although I did enjoy it, I didn’t love it and I won’t read it again.

I think Evan’s struggle with his anxiety was really well written and I could relate to him quite a bit. He was the only character I warmed to though, I found the other characters weren’t really touched upon much, so we didn’t get to see much of them. This could be because the whole book was in Evan (and at some parts Connor’s) point of view, however I’ve read plenty of books written from the POV of one character that have managed to show the other characters well, so I’m not sure it’s that. No matter the reason I think I would’ve enjoyed the book more if we had seen more of the other characters. Jared especially, I thought there was moments we were going to get more from him, but then just didn’t. I actually really disliked Evan’s mum; I know she thinks she’s doing what was best for Evan, but it seemed like she was really just doing things to make her feel better, and she was not actually there for her son when he needed her.

The premise of the story reminded me a lot of one of my favourite films from when I was a teenager, Easy A (if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it – Emma Stone is incredible in it). An accidental lie just grows uncontrollably until the person at the center cannot deal with keeping up with the lie anymore and confesses the truth. I can understand why Evan continued going along with the lie as it meant he was finally noticed and had people who cared about him.

I’d be quite interested in seeing the musical to see how different or similar it is to the book. I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about the musical so may have to look into going to see it.

After having seen this show on stage, I will not be reading the book. The storyline itself made me very uncomfortable.

Didn't manage to download this before it was archived but I've bought the book and can't wait to read it!

I have been a fan of Dear Evan Hansen since I found the musical randomly on Spotify in 2017 but it has only just opened on the West End in London so when this book was announced it is safe to say that I was excited. The book was, therefore, a good read but was definitely a twist in direction after listening to the songs. 

I don't really know what I was expecting from the plot of Evan Hansen especially as I had only listened to the songs and I knew that Evan had anxiety but I didn't realise that was how the plot developed. I think that to some extent that the plot was a little bit surprising and I don't think that I was fully down with it. I just don't really agree with how Evan uses Connor's death but that was the only thing that I disliked. 

As someone with social anxiety, I did connect a lot with Evan's anxiety and did think that it was portrayed quite well in the book and it many respects this was one of my favourite parts of the book. I do feel like I connected to Evan with this, even though he was a little bit annoying at times. Another part that I really liked was seeing the songs in the text and it definitely made the show come to life. 

I think that having read the book, it will be interesting to see how the show differs which I can't wait to see...

The Verdict:

Dear Evan Hansen is a great read for anyone who is waiting for the musical to come near them or someone who just wants to be found.

After finally seeing the show earlier this month, I decided to pick up the book which I got for review from Netgalley last year. I was sceptical going in because I had heard some mixed reviews of the novelisation but I was still hoping it would give me the same feeling that the show did. Sadly, it did not. Don't get me wrong, the show has problems but it felt like the problems in the show were amplified in the novel. Evan came across as very creepy and a lot of the things he said were horrible. Other issues I had with it came through slightly in the show but they were worse in the book. A major issue I have with this story is that Evan doesn't face many consequences for what he did and this was extremely evident in the novel. The only thing I truly appreciated in the novel was the backstory to Connor. Maybe I only like this story because I love the music. I would recommend the show but sadly, I would not recommend the book.

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me.

At first, I liked the characters but for me, the problem was with how suicide is deal with throughout the book. It just didn't sit well with me but maybe that is just my opinion.

This is definitely a very lovely book full of heart and important messages. I already knew the musical and the songs, which made it a bit weird to me that so many lines were directly taking from there and not paraphrased. I would have preferred if there were just some important quotes and not complete passages from songs. 

I still think this is a book that everyone should read, especially those who haven't even heard of the musical, because then it will definitely be an amazing and very emotional ride. I think I would have been way more emotional if I hadn't known about all the twists beforehand. 

What I really loved was the addition of Connor's chapters to the story. They gave his character so much more depth and really pulled me into the story. I also finished this book in basically one day, so that speaks for itself.