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.