#dehnovel

Still my favorite part tbh

Connor x Miguel from the novel.

Barret Wilbert Weed singing Requiem (the new solo version!!!)

(Contains spoilers for both the musical and the novel). So I was lucky enough to receive an advanced proof of Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich but didn’t get around to reading it until the day before it was released. I had pretty low expectations going into it tbh, but it was bad in ways that I wasn’t expecting. So many of the character choices were either a) lazy, b) boring, or c) outright offensive (looking at you Jared). So much of the humour and charm of this show is carried by the actors and this novel just really highlighted that. I felt no endearment towards Evan, nor did I hold any particular weight in the relationships (I felt that Heidi and Evan’s was particularly overlooked). So many of the plot changes (looking at you Connor) were odd and seemed like really lazy ways to change things. Making Connor have a gay tragic backstory made the story step into uncomfortable tropes which I feel like it avoided so well as a stage show. Making Connor a sentient being ‘ghost’ after his death completely removed the meaning of why he was in the stage show. I would have preferred if they just cut him out completely but I guess we need that tragic backstory. Other lazy bits of writing included Zoe’s songwriting (I cringed so hard ITS SO LAZY!), the reveal of Evan falling/letting go and the entire relationship that wasn’t built between Heidi and Evan. This relationship is the backbone to the musical, and the novel just ignored it until the end and decided to build up Connor’s backstory instead. The whole point of the show is that nobody knew Connor, and the audience never got to either. Overall, the novel just failed to see the importance of the artistic decisions in the show, and instead replaced them with lazy writing, tropes and poor humor (including holocaust jokes). Upside: its a super quick read.

Miguel x Connor from the DEH novel with the song The One That Got Away.

Miguel and Evan from the DEH novel