
Fame-to-memoir timeline: October 2003-October 2004 (12 months)
Hamilton’s story practically wrote itself. The then-13-year-old lost her arm in a shark attack while surfing off the shores of the Hawaiian island of Kauai on October 31, 2003. Despite losing all but a stump of her left arm and 60% of her blood, the Hawaii native re-learned how to surf with one arm and was back on the board by January 2004.
Her memoir, Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board, came out on October 5, 2004, making the year anniversary of her incident a cause for celebration. The book’s cover shows Hamilton confidently posing with the damaged surfboard she was using that fateful day. It chronicles her life and faith, the accident and her brave fight to get back on the board.
Soul Surfer, a docu-drama based on her story and the book was released on April 8, 2011.