Scan barcode
A review by thewallflower00
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich
3.0
My first impressions were that this is another “whiny kid” YA book. What I mean by that is it tries to make the character identifiable and relatable by immediately making him an social outcast with no friends and low self-esteem… except that every YA story is like that, so it gets grating. It’s as cliche as the “bully” trope (which this book also has). But the problem is… it works. He feels like I felt back then, struggling to break out of a shell, anxious and depressed all the time. I can’t imagine how easy it is to stay in your fortress after cable modems and wireless connections. But I’m digressing.
There are typical YA topics like suicide and social stature. As I read on, it didn’t really get better. One thing about introverts is that we don’t say much, but we put a lot of weight in what we do say. That means we act with integrity when we speak. No hemming or hawing. No lies. And we have a dedication to the truth, to the point of correcting others just to have something to say. Evan Hansen doesn’t act like this. He picks up an idiot ball and runs with it to the end of the novel.
In fact, I might say that this is the quintessential YA novel. But that’s not a good thing. I mean that in the sense that this book throws all the typical ingredients in the pot and what comes out is pizza. You can’t really ruin pizza, but you can make it unexciting. Just another reheated concoction that everyone else makes.
There are typical YA topics like suicide and social stature. As I read on, it didn’t really get better. One thing about introverts is that we don’t say much, but we put a lot of weight in what we do say. That means we act with integrity when we speak. No hemming or hawing. No lies. And we have a dedication to the truth, to the point of correcting others just to have something to say. Evan Hansen doesn’t act like this. He picks up an idiot ball and runs with it to the end of the novel.
In fact, I might say that this is the quintessential YA novel. But that’s not a good thing. I mean that in the sense that this book throws all the typical ingredients in the pot and what comes out is pizza. You can’t really ruin pizza, but you can make it unexciting. Just another reheated concoction that everyone else makes.