Dear Evan Hansen | December Book Club | #ThreeHallows
This month's book club pick for the Three Hallows book club was Dear Evan Hansen by Steven Levenson. Dear Evan Hansen is most commonly known in its musical format on Broadway. Personally, I have been a fan of the original cast recording from the musical for at least a year and was planning on saving up to go to the USA in order to see Dear Evan Hansen performed... that is until I found out it was coming to London in 2019 and was to be published as a young adult novel.
When it was suggested that Dear Evan Hansen be our first book club read, I could not have been more hyped. Typically, I am a watch the movie/musical then read the book kind of girl so it was nice to be doing it the other way round for a change.
I must admit I have not finished Dear Evan Hansen just yet. I am actually on page 141 out of 358. I started midway through December so considering I read this amount in only a couple of weeks is a big achievement for me. One of my reasons for joining this book club was to give myself a more structured approach to reading as, since completing my MA, I have been struggling to enjoy reading. I do plan on continuing to read Dear Evan Hansen, as long as I can find the time between reading the other book club books (January's pick is A Very Large Expanse Of Sea by Tahereh Mafi) and general life stuff.
Having already rehearsed the musical soundtrack on a daily basis, I vaguely knew the plot of Dear Evan Hansen before even reading the blurb of the book. The story follows a boy named, you guessed it, Evan Hansen. Evan is in high school when one of his fellow highschoolers commits suicide, leaving Evan in an uncomfortable situation. I won't say anymore as I fear I may be giving too much away.
When faced with a choice, Evan makes the wrong one. This makes it difficult to sympathise with his character but, for me personally, did not take anything away from my reading experience. Even from being less than half way through the book, I am invested in Evan's life and the lives of those around him. I am especially intrigued by Jared's character who seems to be helping Evan even though he would not consider him as a friend.
One of my favourite songs in the musical is Sincerely Me and I have often wondered who the characters singing this song are and how the song comes up in the story which reading this book has shown me. As loser-ish as I may sound, I had a lot of fun singing the song in my head as the conversation was being carried out in the book.
Overall, I am really enjoying Dear Evan Hansen so far and think, despite being irrevocably sad and almost disturbing, I am finding it quite a fun read.
However, if I was not already familiar with the musical, I doubt I would have enjoyed this book. So, I would only recommend it to you if you already consider yourself a fan of the musical and the story.
Please let me know below if you have read Dear Evan Hansen (or seen it) and what you think of it and don't forget to check out Rachel and Amy's posts linked below.
Look out for our January book club pick A Very Large Expanse of Sea and feel free to read along with us.
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