Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review. This story set in the 1990’s in South Florida is where we meet the main character CC. It’s a coming of age story as she handles the ups and downs of dealing with her dysfunctional family. The story is told in alternating timelines of the past and present. I thought the book was realistic, raw and sad. Everything about the book felt real, nostalgic and completely raw. I typically enjoy a more uplifting read but I did find it enjoyable.

This was such a wonderful and heart wrenching story. I loved the past to present storyline it really moved this book forward. CC is such a relatable character for me she really touched me. Family dysfunction at its finest.

i loved the cover and the title so of course i would request this book. Well, all i can say is that this Floridian family are nuts, talk about dysfunctional. thats an understatement, Beth, although i didnt like the characters but thats how they are supposed to be your writing was great. the story flows back and forth from one point to another. i am glad the main character got the life she wanted

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the advanced copy of this book.

A compelling story I couldn’t put down. Lives are lived through a great deal of situations. The story of a family in trauma that works through issues to see the other side.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. I can't say enough good things about Fireworks Every Night. It is one of the best books I've read so far this year and the best work of fiction I've read about being a young person in Florida. I would know - I was brought to Florida as an elementary school child and wasn't happy about it - and I'm still not. For those who have never visited Florida or live here, the story might be far-fetched but I can assure you, it is not. CC is nine years old when she and her 11 year old sister are hauled off from relatives in Ohio by their father and mother. Their father was a auto dealership owner whose entire lot and property burned down under suspicious circumstances, possibly arson. CC's father builds a big Florida McMansion and gets a job at a local car dealership. Things start to unravel from there. Fireworks every night is an incredible coming of age story - a young woman trying to navigate her way in what could be called no-man's land. The descriptions of the people, the places, the weather, the scenery are all vivid and all too accurate. I feel as if pages of my life story were taken and placed into this incredible novel.

This novel is a coming of age story told in dual timelines. CC has a difficult childhood with dysfunctional parents and a sister who she always feels responsible for. There are many heartbreaking moments and some dark humor throughout. I could not stop rooting for CC and just hoping things would get better for her. She marries a well to do man, but her past and her family make that world difficult for her too. This is a short read at 240 pages, but CC’s story is powerful. I rarely say this, but I’d have liked this to be a little longer because I wasn’t quite ready to let go.

Thank you to @NetGalley @penguinrandomhouse #bethraymer for an early copy of this beautifully written book.

I really struggle on whether to give this 3 or 4 stars, because it's probably a 3.5 or 3.75. The writing is so, so very good, but ultimately I rounded down. It's simply one of the most depressing books I've ever read, unremittingly sad and toxic and difficult. Some people love that kind of book, and I think this book is great for them! But for me, I think the book would have been improved by adding in moments of levity. In addition, I felt that CC had little to no growth by the end of the story, and I found that frustrating. Realistic, perhaps, but simply frustrating.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book and had quickly read part of the synopsis and liked it from the first few sentences and didn’t feel the need to read more about it and jumped right in and I’m so glad I did! CC, a young, girl who lives with her dysfunctional family in Florida is the protagonist of this truly raw story. This book, to me, read more like a memoir than a novel and I loved that. The dark humor and characters, although I didn’t love all of them, were drawn out so well by the author. This one was definitely worth reading and I really enjoyed it.

This story brings all the family drama. I want to say this feels like it’s a book about the American Dream. It’s about a young girl, CC, who grows up in the 1990s with a very dysfunctional family.
They leave their life in Ohio after a fire destroys their home and business. Her dad is a used car salesman and appears to be good at it. He has big dreams and is very ambitious. He sees Florida as a place of hope and way of change for their family. “Florida, we got it all. Motorsports, ribs, beer. You can drive on the sand right on up to the ocean. Fireworks every night.”- Fireworks Every Night
CC’s mother is middle age but acts like she is in her early twenties. Like CC’s father she battles acohol addition and just never feels to be good enough for her husband. CC’s older sister falls into drug addiction. CC is the only one who tried to help and get her back on her feet. The book is told from CC’s point of view and flips between present day and past as she relives her childhood family drama. CC is a strong character and we see her constantly trying to live for herself but always being pulled back in to help bail out her family members in whatever trouble they get themselves into. The story is told beautifully and you really start to feel for the characters, their story and the toxicity they bring to their lives. I felt all the emotions as CC is reliving and telling her story. Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This coming of age story is set during 1990s South Florida where we meet our main character CC. She navigates through the ups and downs of her life and her dysfunctional family told alternatively between past and present. Everything about the book felt real, nostalgic and completely raw. It will tear at your heart strings and make you root for CC as she struggles to make it through all of life challenges. I typically gravitate towards family drama, but this one just really spoke to me, and I flew right through it. Thank you Random House &Net Galley for the opportunity to review this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is certainly a well written book, I especially liked the phrasing and language, but it’s also a bit sad and frustrating. I don’t think I was the ideal audience for it.

The majority of the story takes place while C.C. is growing up in Florida as she comes of age as part of what I would categorize as a very disfunctional family. A smaller portion of the book takes place in the present as she reconciles with her past. I was fortunate to have a very stable, middle class upbringing and this story makes the case that you are deeply formed and effected by your upbringing and family dynamics. C.C. has married into a wealthy family, but I never quite understood how that courtship happened and that omission made me think that aspect of the story wasn’t successful. I was a bit hung up in some large gaps in her life, or at least I felt they were overlooked in the story.

Since information about her past is slowly doled out it’s not immediately clear what has happened with each family member. I enjoyed reading about experiences other than my own, but overall I wasn’t that engaged in the story. I was upset on C.C.’s behalf — so maybe I was engaged but left frustrated.

Also, the relevance or methophar for the zoo aspect of the story escaped me.

To be fair, this is in no way a bad book and I think many readers will like it, but it was out of my usual comfort zone and I found it to be a challenging read.

A quiet and heartfelt story of a deeply dysfunctional life that somehow ends up ok despite trauma, abandonment, an all varieties of betrayal. This book is beautifully written and emotionally evocative. My one small gripe is that the ending feels a bit abrupt — the book just kind of stops— but other than that it was a beautiful read.

Fireworks Every Night is a great story about a young woman named C.C. who has a seriously messed up family. The book is told in a dual timeline which I really enjoyed. Her history is heartbreaking, her parents and sister are genuinely horrible people. At times I felt for the dad a bit but then he would do something despicable. I loved the writing style and the atmosphere was so strong that the humidity started to get to me as well. Someone has mentioned how this one somehow makes the unsympathetic characters sympathetic and I totally agree with that, while her sister is a crazy drug addict, you also legit feel bad for her. That scene in the car with the baby, wow. Her mom as well, I mean, she is awful, but you do feel bad for her. C.C. is such a great character, she is funny, strong, independent, and clever. I loved this book and look forward to reading more by this author.

This is a dual timeline coming-of-age story set in the 1990s and present day. CC is the youngest of two sisters in a dysfunctional family in south Florida. CC’s father is a swaggering alcohol fueled car salesman and her pretty yet troubled mother stays home raising her and her unbalanced sister. As an adult, after escaping from her childhood home of “fireworks every night”, CC is comes to terms with her current life. She examines the stable family life that she has married into and in the process reunites with her estranged family members. CC’s career of working in zoos presents moments of reflection on how animals just keep on living when their homes are no longer habitable. This book was well written, but sometimes I struggled with the timeline. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a copy of the digital ARC.

C.C. has a seriously messed up family. Her dad is a charming alcoholic with a penchant for doomed get rich quick schemes and her mother is a former beauty who can’t deal with aging and is desperately trying to hang onto her youth. Her older sister is depressed and turns to drugs and bad companions. That C.C. manages to navigate these challenges and persevere without losing herself or her family is a miracle.

One of the things I really liked about the book was the author’s ability to make even the unsympathetic characters somewhat sympathetic. You might not like them, but you can still understand.

Recommended

thank you for the ARC! I thought this was really heartbreaking and just trauma point after trauma point. after reading the new yorker article about trauma plots, this left me wishing it was better done i think. it just ended up being so unbearably sad and nothing really came of it. i think that women who like kristen hannah and that kind of sad but nice writing will really enjoy this!

This is a bittersweet debut novel that touched my heart and had me weeping in parts. CC grows from a young girl to a woman in a dysfunctional family with sister, Lorraine and two very odd, often pathetic parents. Dad is a car salesman and mom tries to get by but so many circumstances prevent them from ever becoming a happy family. The proverbial sex, drugs, rock & roll all figure into this book as we alternate in time from childhood to adulthood and see depression, addiction, and ultimately resiliency in these flawed but very human characters.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I really liked reading this novel. It was completely original and seemed almost like it had been a true story. I just kept thinking “this family is so unlucky”. C.C. is so strong and had been through so much and still reached out to her family. To her parents, who basically ruined the beginning of her life and made it that much harder. It was a quick read too which made it all that much better. No beating around the bush with pages of overly descriptive paragraphs. I liked that it got to the point and told the story. Wonderful read.

Fireworks Every Night is a novel of survival and acceptance in a society that allows for choices among the living and then unfortunately having to live with the choices that are made for the ones who made the choices as well as their family members. No matter what choices these family members make, the consequences are disastrous to the unlikely end. Even wildlife and the environment used in comparisons are a l so doomed. This novel makes me so thankful for my life and family.

In "Fireworks Every Night” Beth Raymer tells the darkly hilarious coming of age story. CC, a precocious twelve year old in a dysfunctional family struggles to claw her way out of poverty. Raymer straddles the line between humor and pathos masterfully and, in CC, she has developed a one of a kind character. This is a truly compelling read.