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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In From Rollercoasters to Carousels, Gigi Khonyongwa-Fernandez turns her experience as the mother of Alejandro, born at twenty-four weeks after the loss of his twin, into a medical self-help memoir for parents affected by neonatal intensive treatment. Alejandro spends nearly six months in a London NICU before coming home with medical needs. Retinopathy of prematurity, an eye disease affecting premature babies, leaves him legally blind. The author retrains as a trauma-informed coach, drawing on her career as an occupational therapist as she searches for the support she once needed. Interviews with parents from around the world broaden the book beyond her family as seven recurring feelings become entry points into practical coaching. Each entry pairs real-life accounts with questions, so readers will understand their response to trauma and move toward the calmer carousel suggested by the title.
Gigi Khonyongwa-Fernandez’s From Rollercoasters to Carousels is an exceptional medical self-help memoir, written with conversational ease that reaches parents on a very human level. The author has a real gift for bringing another family’s experience into her guidance, so the reader feels surrounded by people who understand what this territory can require. You see that when a Canadian mother who lost one twin begins absorbing information about her surviving son’s heart condition after a doctor draws the heart for her, turning the medical explanation into something she can finally take in. The coaching has the same usefulness when a bereaved mother describes her community as people willing to sit with her in the “yuck” for as long as she needs, which captures exactly why this book feels so reassuring. Readers seeking support after a difficult parenting experience will find that here. Very highly recommended.
