I enjoyed this sweeping story about the plot of a young orphan girl and her adventures over the years that followed.
However I felt that the character of Marie-Claire lacked depth, kindness and compassion. She had a somewhat vacuous personality.

I had hoped this would be an epic tale. But it ended up to be a bit. boring to me. It was not as good as i had hoped it would be.

I enjoyed the atmospheric feel of the book, but found it to be rather slow at times. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

Coming of age with a twist - left at an orphanage with no memories, Marie-Claire is adopted into the life of a diplomat. The story was well written, and it felt like I could watch the scenes unfold before me. A beautiful journey, with an interesting main character, who is finding who she is while wondering where she came from. The story flowed smoothly, but I wouldn't say it was particularly fast-paced.

An 8 year old girl hits her head falling out of a truck. Bleeding and not knowing where she is or who she is, she makes herself getup and walk. Although cold, bleeding and weary she doesn’t give up. She finally reaches a church where she falls asleep on one of the benches. The next morning she is found and taken to an orphanage. Her memory does not return so the nuns name her Marie-Claire. She is later adopted by the Le Blancs and starts a new life. And what a wonderful life that is. Her newly adopted father, being a French Ambassador, moves to several countries and stays in luxurious embassies. She loves her new life with all its luxuries, particularly the buying of new outfits and shoes. At this point in the story there were many details of different Cities, continuous rounds of parties and meals that became tedious in my opinion.
Her struggle to remember her past is the intriguing part that continues throughout the story and begs for the reader to turn to the next page. An easy, fast enjoyable read. I give it 3.5 stars.

An orphan who is adopted by a wealthy couple and raised in affluence, all the time searching for her brother.

Books Go Social, Edelweiss 12/15/18

I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. I am preparing myself for the onslaught from the many who appear to love this book, I am afraid it did less than appeal to me. The narrative opens with a child obviously running from someone, something or someplace; injured and amnesic. It continues through orphanage life peeling veg, sweetly saccharine language ability to an awesome adoption into a life of luxury. Here we have a child with none of the benefits of a good starts in life, a child genius in languages, a more than talented ballet dancer, a more than promising artist and still the saccharine primness of good moral behaviour and integrity. Most of it felt like sugar coated cereal sweet on the outside but a bit blah in the middle. I think the author missed the chase to mix in the back story the main narrative had no purpose - where was it going? why? If I read that the MC woke up with a wet pillow or tears on her cheeks one more time I swear it would make me ill.

A purposeless storyline that suddenly realised it had to find some way to round the story off.

This story was inspired by a song by Peter Sarstedt, “Where do you go to my lovely” you should listen to it, as it is quite beautiful and you can see where his inspiration came from.
This is the story of a young girl, who wakes up on a street in Rome after having fallen from a truck with no memories of her past.
Sent to an orphanage and later, adopted by a French diplomat and his wife. Marie Claire's life becomes a whirlwind of opportunity and travel.
Ever since the accident, Marie Claire would always wake up crying with the memory of someone lying on the street surrounded by blood, but never knowing what it meant.
I thoroughly, enjoyed the story even though at times it seemed a bit far fetch as this was a girl that was naturally gifted in anything she decided to do.
Shortly after her adoption, the family moved from Rome, to Greece and then to Russia and then back to France, as her fathers job as an ambassador, moved him around quite a bit.
Marie Claire learned all of the languages with facility, in Greece took up Ballet which she also studied in Russia, Studied art at the Sorbonne, and was always surrounded by wealthy and well known people. Her life was one of privilege.
I guess you could see it as a grown up fairy tale, which we all need now and again.
I will be curious to see what his next book will be about.
I would like to thank, NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for a copy of this book.

An easy read with great character development. I loved the way it was written and the descriptions of all the amazing places!

This book is very atmospheric and I felt as if I were in the story with Marie-Claire. What is the mystery of her past? I was flipping pages to find out.
Many thanks to BooksGoSocial and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was a little bored with about 40% of the book because I felt the writer gave too much attention to the travel areas of the characters. I’m sure there are readers who will like that subject, it just wasn’t for me. I really enjoyed the book when the theme was more about the characters. Thank you #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Once again, I was taken in by description. I am a sucker for historical fiction, Europe and old history and romance.
However, this book left me cold and reeling. It reads more like a 'dreamboard' of someone who wants to tick all the right boxes: travel to Greece, skiing in Alps, dresses from couture, apartment in Paris, etc.
I found lengthy descriptions really boring and unnecessary. The dialogue was little and lacking. The story did not take me.
A girl ends up at Roman orphanage. She does not know her name and where she is from. But surprisingly, this girl can do anything: learn languages, cook, say all the right things at the right time. I found it very hard to believe an 8 year old can be like that, especially after such a trauma.... Call me a sceptic.
The rest of the book is more or less fairy tale for this girl. From orphanage to diplomatic palace, from rags to riches... Brrrr.
This book was a lot but a little. I am sorry to say

It appears that I may be in the minority when it comes to Jean Cerfontaine’s WHERE DO YOU GO TO since I have mixed emotions about the book.

First, the author took the entire premise for the novel from the 60’s Peter Sarstedt song of the same title. Granted, he did embellish some of the situations and added a bit here and there but, for the most part, readers could have saved hours of reading time by listening to the song. (The situation is reminiscent of most of the recent James Patterson offerings. Patterson creates “plot outlines” for stories and contracts with other writers who do the actual writing). In this instance Sarstedt built the house (so to speak) by creating the song and thereby the plot and Cerfontaine was the interior designer who took the house, hung the drapes, placed the furniture and turned the house into a home.

The narrative is simple and effortless evoking a protagonist whose adventures, while somewhat unbelievable, still manage to engage the reader by making the ripples produced by one situation so involving, you just can’t pull away. While the story has a certain YA fairy tale quality, Cerfontaine manages to show his readers that even when your memory fails …..you still have your heart.

It's quite unique to write a story adapted from a famous song. That being said,, while I've never heard the song, I definitely enjoyed the story. This coming-of-age story was quite skillfully crafted into an intriguing historical fictional work. Highly recommended.

I have read some other reviews on this book and it seems most reviewers liked it very much but I found it very slow moving and also parts of it were not particularly believable. I never felt a connection to the characters at all. There is much more written about food and different countries of the world and the different mansions the characters lived in . I just did not connect with this at all.

Thanks Net Galley for allowing me to read this arc for my honest review.

This was an interesting book. I enjoyed reading it. It was a bit unusual going from different parts of the main characters life. She was a strong person who had a bad start in life but then was adopted and had a good lifestyle. I found out lots about the countries she lived in . It was nice that it had a happy ending. I recommend it to be read.

This ARC was courtesy of netgalley - all thoughts and opinions are mine and unbiased


Loved this

Well written, loved the characters

Evocative and emotional - I couldn't put this down

Engrossing

Beautiful story about an orphan girl who has no memory of where she came from but is adopted by a loving couple in the diplomatic service for France.
Set in post war Europe and the Cold War her fathers job takes her around the world including Moscow where she trains as a dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet Company to Paris where she attends the Sorbonne to study art.
It describes a glittering life mixing with the social elite but all the time wondering where she really came from.

Very atmospheric novel set in post WW2 Europe. The narrative traces the life of a "perfect" girl who grew in an orphanage and then entered a family of diplomats. In doing so, the reader is invited on a journey through the Europe of that time, revealing the habits and rich intellectual and artistic discussions that were at the core of dinner parties.

I didn't like the cover. The photo-shopped juxtaposition of the woman in front of the Eiffel tower gave a cheap feel. It also gave me a wrong impression of the book's genre. if i hadn't read the description i would not have downloaded the book, given that at first sight i had the impression it is a romance novel

A great novel, beautiful depiction of the characters with some tense moments thrown into the mix. Will definitely pick more books by this talented author.