This book was a stunning emotional ride. There were some parts of this story that reminded me of the things that happened in my high school life. I helped out with a few fundraisers after a few of my classmates in high school died from suicides and some car wrecks that happened in the city I live in. The worst car wrecks was when a classmate was crossing the railroad tracks and a train hit her car, killing her while her parents watched from their own car behind hers. It really hit home to everyone.
This book is what I have been searching for after reading The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. These two stories have helped me through some sad, lonely and depressing times. I would love to find and way to say thank you to both of the writers of these two books and the actors of these two movies. I am planning to buy a copy of Dear Evan Hansen on video when it comes out.
In the first part of the story, I really felt like I could relate to Evan Hansen. I felt alone a lot in high school and I wrote a lot like he did. But I did not write letters to myself, but I wrote stories to help me to get through all the sadness I was going through. So I have walked a mile in Evan’s shoes. I understand how writing your feelings down can help you to get them out so those feelings don’t eat you alive and effect your life. But I also know that sometimes when you force yourself to write out your feelings you can have writer’s block or just write something so you can say that you wrote something. When you do that it does not help you to feel better or to work out the feelings that you need to.
Like Evan, I had to write in a notebook for one of my past therapists. Sometime I would just write out some things so that I would simply have something to show my therapist, and other times I had feelings that I wanted my therapist to know about so they could help me work through them. My therapist would read what I had written in the notebook and then write some feedback for me. So I know how Evan felt when he would write his letters for his therapist and sometimes be unsure as to whether he should write out his sincere feelings or just fake it. But when he writes a letter to himself that had his real feelings and his sexual feelings for his classmate Zoe Murphy, his life went CRAZY!! It started when Zoe’s brother Connor signed Evan’s cast and then says “Now we both can pretend that we both have friends.” The next thing that happened to Evan’s life was Connor picking up Evan’s therapy letter off of the school printer and reading it. Conner said “Dear Evan Hansen?” Evan said “Yes.” But after Conner read the letter he stormed out of the room with Evan chasing after him trying to get his letter back and begging him not to show it to anyone.
The last thing Evan had ever thought would happen to him was finding out that Conner had killed himself and Conner’s parents finding the letter that Evan wrote to himself. However, Conner’s parents thought that Conner had written it to Evan. Conner’s parents told Evan that they didn’t think their son had any friends. Evan did try to tell The Murphys that it was him who wrote the letter, not Conner, but Conner’s mom pushed the letter back in his hand without really hearing what he was saying. As she was doing that she saw that Conner had written his name on Evan’s cast. When she saw that she was full of emotions. After that Mrs. Murphy wanted to know every thing about Evan and Conner’s friendship. That was the beginning of Evan’s troubles and things got worse from there.
The next part of the story that I enjoyed was when Evan went to the Murphy house for dinner. When he got there Mrs. Murphy welcomed him to their house You can see that Evan felt very nervous and was not sure what he was doing there. As Evan, Mr. & Mrs. Murphy, and Zoe sat at the huge dining table, Mrs. Murphy started firing question to Evan about Conner and their friendship, such as how they met and other embarrassing questions that Evan didn’t have a good answer for. Evan tried to answer them as best he could, but when the questions got a little more embarrassing he brought up a park. Mrs. Murphy asked if he meant the orchard and Evan said yes. Hearing that, Mrs. Murphy teared up and then started talking how they use to go there a lot when Conner and Zoe were younger and how they had great memories there.
Reading that part of the book reminded me of when I talk to family members in present times about the thing their kids and I used to do when we all where younger, and how we had a lot of fun back then, and how things have changed now. A lot of places have closed down because the company did not have the money to keep it running. Churches have claimed the land, and things just getting run down. Sometimes when I think about those times I feel sad that they are gone, and sometimes I am happy that the thing was there to bring joy to people that were my age when I was young. But I still miss those those places like Tee Off Golf Putt Putt mini golf and other similar places.
Although people initially mourned for Conner at the school, after some time had passed people stopped thinking of Conner and went on to the next big thing that was happening in their lives. When Evan saw this, he started thinking of fundraisers to make sure that the memory of Conner would never be forgotten. Evan thought of The Conner Project to make sure that would happen.
The project was going to raise money to buy the orchard and restore it to how it was in the past. Evan’s friends Alana and Jared wanted to be part of this project. But before they got started they needed to make sure it was ok with the Murphy family. So they go to the Murphy house to talk to them about the project. The Murphys loved the idea. The best part of this section of the book was when Evan had to give a speech to the whole school body and the Murphys. Even’s speech went viral over the net and everyone that saw the speech knew how Evan and Conner felt being alone, and how having someone reaching out to check on them and giving them a hand was important. His speech was liked and shared so many times it could have crashed the net. This showed me that if you have a good point you want to share with everyone or with a small group of people, you have no idea how people will react to it. Your speech might make people feel good and want to share it with others and the next thing you know it has gone all over the world.
On one fun bit in this book was when Even & Jared were at Jared’s mom job at a gym and they were watching the ladies doing their workout on the treadmills. One of the ladies spotted Evan and asked him if he was the one that did the speech that was all over the net. Evan told her it was. The lady said that she and her kids loved his speech. She told Evan that it made all of them feel happy and warm in their hearts. After they heard that they both get up and walk into the the hallway. Jared said “Your speech got you hit on by a MILF!” I found that funny and a little blush inducing.
I want to say this whole story was written for anyone that is alone and it shows that there are people that are out there to help people and make people less lonely. Also some lies do help some people, but some lies can get out of control and can make things worse as things spin out of control. So it is best to tell the truth and be there for people that need help. I feel this book shows both sides for the coin and you just need to make the best decision and hope that it was the best thing you could do for that person or people.
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