This book is so special to me because it was a gift from my maid of honor. Amanda had been with me through a lot and I can kinda relate to Evan and all of his anxiety and feeling alone. You will be found is a song that touches my heart every time and makes me think of Amanda and all she has done for me.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Dear Evan Hansen: the novel and Dear Evan Hansen: The Musical.
Author: Val Emmich (Goodreads Author), Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul
Publisher: Poppy
Published on: October 9th 2018
Number of Pages: 368
Bought, Borrowed or ARC: Gifted by Amanda (therefore priceless)
Where can you get it?
Again, I make no money off of these links. These are simply for your convenience. These prices are accurate as of January 19th 2020.
Amazon: $10.99
Book Depository: $11.63
Books-A-Million: $17.09
Barnes and Noble: $17.09
Dear Evan Hansen,
Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why…
When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family’s grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend.
Suddenly, Evan isn’t invisible anymore–even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy’s parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he’s doing can’t be right, but if he’s helping people, how wrong can it be?
No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He’s confident. He’s a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself.
A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.
Before reading Dear Evan Hansen, I had really only listened to the musical and I think even then I only listened to it all the way before picking my favorite songs ( read: the most popular ones) and only playing those. I don’t think I ever really looked up to find out if Dear Evan Hansen had a happy ending, I just kinda assumed it did. I guess in the end it does in a way but it didn’t end how I thought it would.
I feel like some of my judgement about this book/musical is skewed because someone who was very close to me introduced it to me and we mainly focused on “You Will Be Found” which is a song that always makes me feel better and reminds me that no matter how I feel, I am not alone and someone out there does care about me. I relate to Evan with his anxiety, feeling alone and suicidal ideations/intentions so sometimes this book was hard to read because it brought those feelings up.
Even though Evan makes some not so great choices, we can all relate to him in some way. Maybe we have made bad choices or lied to get someone to like us, maybe we feel alone in this world and just want someone to love and care about us. I feel that how relatable of this musical is why is has been so successful and I’m glad Amanda showed it to me. I hope to one day see the show.
Just a YA book reader sharing her thoughts with the world 
Great review! I was wondering whether to read this book because like you I’ve only listened to mostly the popular songs on this album but I’ve also tried listening to some of the other ones to get a better picture of the full story! I really enjoyed it. I hope that they make this musical into a movie (like they’re doing for Hamilton!) because I’d love to watch it all unfold 💜
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Honestly, some songs in musicals make zero sense to me without the in between stuff so this was kinda nice to be able to understand. I can’t wait for Hamilton but I’m secretly hoping for a Wicked one too
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I’ve never read this book, but I really enjoy the musical! I got to see it last year in LA, and it was so much fun! Thanks for the fun review of the book!
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