Truly fireworks every night! I love the cover which portrays the issues to come but includes such vivid and vibrant color -hinting that this isn't your everyday coming of age novel. CC has an incredibly difficult life and Beth Rayner has created a beautiful portrait of 1990's. This story will break your heart as CC flashes back to her upbringing and you learn what transpired in her past. Rayner has a way with words and you will be rooting for CC all the way. If you love coming of age stories, reminiscing (90's style) or just want want a memorable story of characters you won't forget, Fireworks Every Night is for you!
.#RandomHouse #Fireworkseverynight #BethRaymer

I had no idea what to expect from this book. I was intrigued by the cover and the title. It looked and sounded fun! Well, Raymer has crafted a beautiful and at most times heartbreaking story. The writing is so good and the story flows back and forth from one point to another. We see the main character through her life as a young girl until she's telling us the story as an adult. Families are toxic and this dives into how she manages to function.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book for the purpose of this review. 5 stars from me!

An easy but depressing read about CC and her tumultuous childhood and family life, weaved together with her present day life. Growing up in Florida after her father burned down their house and car selling business for the insurance money, CC tells of the ups and downs of her life: a workaholic/alcoholic father, a mother who doesn't work or act her age, and a sister going through awful addictions. Despite all of that, she has escaped and married a man who comes from money - but soon that unravels too.

This book switches back and forth every few chapters, and it took me a minute to realize that the symbols at the beginning of the chapter were indicative of being in the past or the present.

I felt like the book kind of left me hanging with no resolution or clearly defined ending. It just kind of finishes.

It was a very easy read - I finished it throughout the course of a few hours. But still very depressing.

Great great book. This story follows the life and a young women and her childhood. and why she is the way she is later on in life. It seems like the reader will be able to relate to at least one of the characters is not all of them in some shape way or form.

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Told in two timelines that eventually meet, C.C navigates her new world as a Zoo Storyteller, marrying into a successful family with money she never had.

While the story transplants you back to C.C's childhood in Florida, we quickly learn how tumultuous and rough her childhood was: car salesman father, witless, cheating mother, and very troubled sister.

C.C's dysfunctional upbringing felt very real and I applaud Raymer's portrayal.

An intriguing and surprising read full of bleakness and resilience. We meet CC in the present day, where she seems to be thriving as a newlywed with husband Alex, a wealthy journalist with a trust fund.

Slowly, CC’s story unravels as we go back in time and get glimpses of her turbulent upbringing in Florida. I found CC to be a very sympathetic character who is far more gracious to her awful parents than I imagine many others would be in her place. The story is written well and immerses the reader into CC’s world. It offers no neat solutions to the circumstances it portrays and the many complex issues it raises, though readers are still left with a satisfying conclusion.

Thank you very much to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Fireworks Every Night
A Novel
by Beth Raymer

Description
A young woman trapped in a deeply dysfunctional family in the seedy wilds of 1990s South Florida has to make a choice—save her family, or save herself—in this larger-than-life debut novel from the acclaimed author of Lay the Favorite.

“Florida, we got it all. Motorsports, ribs, beer. You can drive on the sand right up to the ocean. Fireworks every night.”
That's how twelve-year-old CC's father, who named her after his beloved Canadian Club whiskey, describes the appeal of their new home. The man is a born grifter, a used-car salesman who burns down his dealership in southern Ohio for enough insurance money to set up a life for himself, his wife, and his two young daughters in a place he picks largely at random because the living seems easy.
CC’s mother is thirty-five going on seventeen, a housewife who just wants to drive a Mustang and hang out at the mall. CC’s sister goes from loving Debbie Gibson and jelly shoes to having a full-on drug addiction and listening only to heavy metal, after enduring forms of abuse within her family. In the midst of this dysfunction, CC is trying to stay afloat and make it out—to achieve some semblance of a stable life in America while coming up against the structural and cultural challenges of growing up in poverty.
This tumultuous coming-of-age novel features an unforgettable protagonist, a character who narrates her life story with dark comedy and compassion for her family, even as she is failed by them. Those failures—and her self-taught methods for succeeding anyway—are the backbone of this deeply funny and surprisingly poignant story about hard bargains, family loyalties, and the grit of a woman determined to create a better life for herself than the one she was born into.

This was a pretty good read. No surprised. The family was hard to like at all. CC just kept trying to help everyone, and nobody wanted help as they failed. I felt she was beginning to fail herself several times. But, in the end, she became so much more... life is a choice, to rise above or sink with the upbringing. I am glad she did rise.

This is the story of a young woman trying to find her way through the wreckage created by her dysfunctional family in order to create a life of her own.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this book. It is very readable but left me feeling sad and a bit let down. I couldn't quite connect to the MC. I felt the pain of her childhood but was confused by her as an adult. ***SPOILER ALERT She sees herself as uneducated, needing her husband to teach her. However, she works as the sole writer/publicist for a zoo.

I see this becoming a popular book club pick.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC. This is my honest review.