#dear evan hansen book

[froginamoodboard]

Conguel moodboard with books and dancing themes

Requested by: anon

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[connorjared]

TW: description of death and suicide

the writing for deh frustrates me in tone. suicide and grief is... brutal. it's horrifying. the murphys, three days after connor's body was presumably found, being able to discuss something with connor's (speculated) best friend?

there is nothing innocuous about organ failure—connor's method, being pills, (I presume fentanyl if he got it from a plug) would be an extremely painful and long way to die. he would have been found choking on his own vomit and blood potentially having a seizure with his eyes bulged and glazed. in the book as a ghost be briefly mentions the state of his body, and it's fairly ghoulish, but none of that is even partly reflected in any of the murphy family's dialogue. it's actually kind of despicable to me and I find it genuinely offensive to people who have experienced this type of grief or have been victims of suicide.

in the book he takes his life in his room, meaning a family member found him.

in the musical he is found on his favorite bench by police. the latter makes much more sense for the murphy's reactions, almost distant from his actual death as it's possible they never even saw his body. but the book's version makes the murphy's seem like bizarre caricatures of what the author thinks grief looks like.

especially for a parent. or a sibling.

a good example of this done extremely well is in Hereditary (2018) directed by Ari Aster. the grieving process is diverse, but it's given the weight it deserves in all directions. of course, this is a movie, a horror one at that, so the tone will naturally be different.

while musicals can of course handle dark and macabre or tragic subjects, it's vital to handle carefully with a balance of tone and being sure that your central theme comes across—

Heathers is an excellent example of this. The tone is dark comedy, which can be very hard to balance, but the theme is able to perfectly shine through because it was planned out and prioritized.

The theme for Dear Evan Hansen is... muddy, if I'm being incredibly generous.

If it's that, "No one deserves to be forgotten," well... it was extremely weakly handled considering the character that passes away is neglected by the text and slandered by the dialogue—including the removal of his queerness and neurodivergence.

Let's say the theme is... I don't know. "Teen suicide: Don't do it!" then... that's also very weak considering that the character that *does* commit suicide either A. in the musical, is shown to make a positive impact because he committed suicide and B. in the book, openly discusses his reasoning with little to no refute of that reasoning. There's no "what could he have been." There's no sympathy for Connor as a person. There's not even a mention of the scars that would have been found on his body.

Dear Evan Hansen is a musical and book I would tell people to watch, not because I endorse it or even think it succeeds in whatever it was trying to do, but as an example of how works with so much potential can be rendered mediocre or even damaging by something as simple as a lack of vision and respect for the subject you are writing about.

[biggestcringefailure]

rip book evan hansen you would’ve loved video essays

[ilovebucciarrati]

It's just a sketch, but I havent posted for a long time, so...

[scottyzoomz]

have thi photo when me and my friend were playing dress up

giggle

[stimboard-radio]

Miguel stimboard (art by @/ilovebucciarrati!)

✭ with reading/ lovecore stims

✫ RQ'd by anon !

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[miguelsbooklists]

my roommate wants that cookie so effing bad

[multifandom-miriam]

One thing that doesn't make sense in Dear Evan Hansen is that Connor took his own life while he had Evan's letter.

Like, what did he wanted people to think?

Did he wanted to make people believe that his death was Evan's fault (I find this quite improbable, because no one would read that letter and think that Evan was guilty of anything)?

Did he wanted to people to realise that Evan wrote that letter to "tease" him and blame Evan (because no one would have predicted that someone else would pretend to be your bestie after your death)?

EDIT: Did he wanted people to think that Evan was his boyfriend so Evan would suffer from homophobia or discrimination for trying to make him upset with that letter (extremely improbable)??

Didn't he think about that letter?? Was he too lazy or to tired to do something about it??

Does anyone knows the answer to this (or knows a theory that makes sense)? I'm really curious

(Maybe this is explained in the book but I haven't read it)

[eeebbebpbeep]

i never use tumblr idk how anything works BUT r there any deh fans SPECIFICALLY kleinphy and deh BOOK fans… ive been hardcore fixating on connor murphy again and i have this whole completely different storyline mainly surrounding connor and i just I DONT HAVE ANYONE TO TALK ABOUT THIS TO 😭😭😭😭 deh kleinphy and connor murphy fans where r u at hmu. the characters r basically my ocs at this point but i love yhem so bad and am seeking out others!! if tjis flops everyone ignore….

[ya-what--ya-erster]

That one time @puekjh told me Jared's gayer than Connor, and Connor canonically f🤐d a man

[toastyblackcat]

so I have pretty long hair and I paint my nails black so what if I just go to college dressed as connor murphy

[biggestcringefailure]

i bet you guys don’t even know evan’s full name is mark evan hansen. I bet you guys don’t even know the initial symbolism. please read the deh book

[ilovebucciarrati]

[izaacs-notdeadyet]

Soo for people who didn’t know, the gays have their own playlists!!!

[miguelsbooklists]

*falls into a pillow and screams*

Evan

Is that you

[mo0nchhild]

i actually did it

i finally finished reading the dear evan hansen book omg

i started reading it in october...💀