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A review by kimmybartle
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich
4.0
Dear Evan Hansen, an anxious bean that tries to help and do the best he can, but he gets it all wrong. A son who's been feeling left behind, not seen as he is. A boy that can't find his voice until he's invited into a world where he might matter, if only for an ephemerous daydream of a moment.
"I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let's face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?"
I hold "Dear Evan Hansen" (the musical, this book, the movie) so close to my heart. I give 4.5 stars based on how the music had hit me differently already – and really, will anything ever beat precious Evan Platt belting he's waving through a window? I'm emotional like that.
I've explained this book to people as a mix of a modern "Perks of Being a Wallflower" and Simple Plan's "I'm just a kid" / "Welcome to my life." It's a story that is needed, now more than ever. I read this book in a post-quarantine, a sort-of-quarantine world where loneliness being the new normal rings true as Evan falling from a tree and waiting for someone to find him, only for this never to happen. Evan made so many mistakes, countless, but he was doing the best he could with the knowledge he had at the time. I wanted to jump inside this book and steer him in different paths so many times. He drove me crazy, and he drove me to the stars, and that's a character that changes you. I've met Evan Hansen. I was Evan Hansen. The inner child within us that was scared and bruised can find a song of redemption within these pages. I know I did.
"I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let's face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?"
I hold "Dear Evan Hansen" (the musical, this book, the movie) so close to my heart. I give 4.5 stars based on how the music had hit me differently already – and really, will anything ever beat precious Evan Platt belting he's waving through a window? I'm emotional like that.
I've explained this book to people as a mix of a modern "Perks of Being a Wallflower" and Simple Plan's "I'm just a kid" / "Welcome to my life." It's a story that is needed, now more than ever. I read this book in a post-quarantine, a sort-of-quarantine world where loneliness being the new normal rings true as Evan falling from a tree and waiting for someone to find him, only for this never to happen. Evan made so many mistakes, countless, but he was doing the best he could with the knowledge he had at the time. I wanted to jump inside this book and steer him in different paths so many times. He drove me crazy, and he drove me to the stars, and that's a character that changes you. I've met Evan Hansen. I was Evan Hansen. The inner child within us that was scared and bruised can find a song of redemption within these pages. I know I did.