Book review: The Intern by Dillon Khan

Do you love music as well as books? Are you curious about what's happening behind the scenes in the music industry or about being an intern? I the answer to those questions are yes then The Intern by Dillon Khan is a must read!

Jay Merchant has always been passionate about music and now he is offered the opportunity of a lifetime; to work as an intern in music television. In total there are six interns at The Beat, they will all have to show what they're made. After a six months internship(= working for free!) one of the interns will get a long term position at The Beat. Jay struggles to balance a job in the fast lane with a personal life(a microscopical time-slot available for his girlfriend Sophie and his friends). 

My thoughts:
Where to start? Well I don't need more than a couple of seconds to think about that one. The answer is with the music of course and second what a great debut novel Khan has dished up for us. Dillon Khan's many pop cultural references took me right back to a wonderful time of my life. I have a great life now, don't get me wrong, but a time where I was carefree with no big responsibilities. It was like walking down the memory lane, lots of musical references and each chapter was named after a song title. The last chapter was titled Bitter Sweet Symphony and for me that was just the perfect ending of a great story! I love that song.

So being an intern is no joke, not even when you're working in an industry that from the outside seems all glam and fun(it might be fun but also HARD work into the wee hours of the night). Author Dillon Khan uses of his own personal experiences to tell the story about the darker sides of internship, it can great fun but is also quite draining and demanding. Khan himself has worked for MTV so he knows the industry he's writing about inside out. It was enlightening and a bit weird reading about being an intern in the UK, it offered a big contrast to the interns here in Norway where the interns get paid from day one and only work 37,5 hours pr. week.

The Intern was a book with wonderful humor, great characters, a story of what working as an intern might be and last but not least a lot of great and diverse music! I was so sad to let Jay and the others go, might we have some more? Pretty please! Jay might just have been the most normal, realistic character I have come across in a long time, kudos to Khan for writing with such an authentic voice. Also it was very refreshing to read a young adult(not suitable for the youngest YA reader) novel from a male point of view.

I would like to end start this review of The Intern by giving a huge thanks to Hannah from Puffin for getting me out of my comfort-zone. I have absolutely no regrets for dipping my toe into the water, none what so ever. Why not? Because I LOVED every minute I spent with The Intern in my hands and alongside Jay behind the scenes of the music media industry.

Lastly I want to point you all in the direction of The Intern homepage, it is awesome. I can honestly say that I haven't seen a book/author that has this kind of resourceful homepage before so check it out!

My rating of this novel:

/

I thought this to be a fitting way to end this review:

Full disclosure:
Review copy from publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and online book stores like Amazon and The Book Depository (I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store has free shipping to about 100 countries.