This is a spoiler-free review! The version I am reading is an ARC -- any changes made for the final publication are not reflected in this review.
I had only heard a few songs from the Dear Evan Hansen Broadway musical, and was not entirely sure what the plot of the musical actually was before starting this book. I knew the basics: Evan Hansen has a broken arm, and he is writing fake emails between him and a student who passed away at his school. That's about it, and I was interested to see where the story went knowing so little going into the book.
Right in the beginning of the book, you feel bad for Evan -- he is a bit of a loner, seems to be under a lot of stress and dealing with a boatload of anxiety, and cannot catch a break. No one speaks to him in the halls unless they are making a snide remark, and as for the people who do talk to him, it certainly is not for his benefit. Jared, the son of one of Evan's mother's friends, basically uses Evan as a pawn to stay in the good graces of his parents. Other than Jared, there really is not anyone that Evan can turn to besides his mother or his psychologist.
This book reads fairly quickly, yet that does not take away from the fact that I was speeding through the story and still felt as though nothing was going on. Information is thrown out to the reader and we are left with bits and pieces of Evan trying to get himself out of a mess he did not mean to get himself into, while everyone else in the story is pushing a narrative onto him. Especially when it comes to Evan -- at least in the beginning -- trying to right the wrongs that have been committed, but he consistently backs out at the last minute and arguably makes everything so much worse than it was before he tried to fix anything.
Jared was pretty funny in the beginning of the book, but as the story went on, his presence became more of a black cloud hovering over Evan, since he was the only one who knew the truth from the very beginning. I found it interesting and pretty strange that Jared would continue to say that he and Evan were never friends despite their history, and yet he was very open to helping Evan build upon this growing lie for a mere twenty dollars and a passing comment to his mom so that his car insurance could be covered.
Alana had way to much pep in her step and a controlling nature that you could spot from a mile away and know that she was going to be a problem and blow things way out of proportion, and that is exactly what she did. I could not stand her any time she came on the page and the way that she treated Evan was so incredibly annoying -- as if he was just a step for her to become more popular at school and for people to know that she exists at all.
You feel so incredibly bad for Connor's family the entire book -- they are just being fed lie after lie as they try to come to terms with Connor's death, and you can tell that his parents, especially his mother, is clinging to this new version of Connor in order to understand what happened. Zoe, Connor's sister, and Evan's friendship to relationship was actually so hard to read because we know all of this information about Evan and what he has been keeping from Connor's family that it makes it seem absolutely unthinkable that he would attempt any form of romantic relationship with Zoe.
By the end of the book, the only character I liked was Zoe -- sure, she has her flaws, but she seemed to be the only one who actually grew as a character and was a genuine person. Even Connor's parents were unbearable at times, and do not even get me started on Jared. Evan grew into this person who seemed to recognize that what he was doing was wrong, but still fed into the attention that everyone gave him, while also struggling with the anxiety he had been battling. Everyone in the school seemed to use Connor's death as a personal gain instead of looking at it as a tragedy and try to grow and understand how to help others.
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