Great for teens and adults interested in sports, perseverance, or women’s empowerment stories. It’s especially motivating for anyone chasing a dream despite conventional obstacles. Narration is well done and fast paced. Great for anyone who loves true stories of grit and discovery

I love the sport of surfing. I’ve never done it myself, but for years now, I’ve maintained an interest in watching the sport online. I follow the WSL pretty regularly. Not as much this year as in the past, but when time zones allow, odds are good I’m live streaming an event while listening to an audiobook at home.

I’d never heard of Maya Gabeira though. I think it’s because she’s a Big Wave surfer, and I don’t really follow that series. That said, give me all the stories about women competing and championing their sport, job, hobbies, whatever their passion is. I’m here for it. I loved hearing Maya’s story in her own voice and I loved that she took us all the way back to the beginning. I really got a sense of how she stumbled upon this sport and what it came to mean to her.

Her story was beautiful and if you’re interested in the sport at all, or just interested in reading a great memoir, I recommend this one!

Thank you NetGalley and RBmedia for approving my request for this book.

Thank you for the opportunity to review the advance copy of Beyond the Board, the audiobook version. Kudos to Maya Gabeira for narrating the audiobook!

I was pretty unfamiliar with surfing in general and never knew there was something like Big Wave Surfing and being towed by jet skis into waves. I never realized that surfers chase waves around the continent and that they are constantly watching the weather and ready to hop on a plane to catch the next Big Wave.

Maya grew up with a father who was in politics and had a pretty privileged up bringing. She has a unique mix of independence and anxiety (that didn't seem to be diagnosed until later in her surfing career). At times the memoir seems conflicted between being the only woman in a mans sport and issues with anxiety; sometimes she was extremely independent and traveling to remote parts of the globe, and other times she would make a phone call to family because the physical pain of something was too much.

Additionally I really don't understand hearing "being a woman in a mans sport" and about how challenging that is ... and then agreeing to be photographed surfing in the nude. Seems like a poor choice if you are looking for respect in your field. How many men are out there being filmed surfing in the nude? 

The audiobook is a little over 8 hours, publication date is Jun 2025.

Many thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for approving my request to listen to the advance copy of Beyond the Board in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for the audiobook review copy of this book. I dislike putting a star rating on someone's life story. This memoir was not for me; it felt surface-level. We learn about Maya's story, but I do not feel like I know her deeply. This memoir is categorized as YA, and possibly that is why, but the writing was simple and straightforward. We moved on from each event in her life, even those that deeply impacted her, very quickly. If you know anything about Maya before reading this, you might get more out of it, but this memoir was just okay to me.

I've always had a love for surfing and the ocean. So the cover caught me attention and really got me excited to hear the story of Big Wave Surfer Maya Gabeira. I was really amazed at how head strong Maya was even as a young girl about her wants and dreams. The struggle of being a woman competing to be in a male dominated sport was strongly shown in this memoir, but the exceptional part was that she kept going. She kept fighting for her dreams of being a professional big wave surfer. She really was one of the pioneers that opened up the sport for change. One of my favorite parts of the book was her referencing the movie Blue Crush since that was and has been my favorite movie since I saw it in theaters in 2001. I also loved being able to travel with her to all of the many destinations she went to, to learn and surf. I could relate to her struggles with anxiety, but not knowing why she was feeling the way she was until later in life.
All together I really enjoyed listening to her journey of becoming a Professional Big Wave Surfer.

There’s no doubt that Maya Gabeira is a pioneer in big wave surfing. I had not heard of her prior to reading this book and so was fascinated by her quest to surf the largest waves she could find. Her determination is admirable, and I loved the glimpse I got into the frenzied race to the far reaches of the globe to find the big waves. As memoirs go, however, I found that this was very surface. She told her story well, but it seemed almost clinical, just the facts and nothing more. Even the pinnacle of the story, her big accident, felt like a sentence or two and not very well fleshed out. I wanted more emotion and feeling, and not just about the accident but everything seemed very basic. It could be because this was a YA memoir and had length constraints but it felt like it was missing something; like the moral of the story was left out.

The author does a fantastic job narrating.

I could take or leave this book. Listening to her story, it often reminded me of women in motocross. Her struggle with having to “be one of the guys” is something that’s experienced in a lot of action sports, so in that regard, it was easy to empathize with and understand. That’s about the extent of the empathy, however.

I was hoping for more fulfilling stories throughout this book. Instead, it felt like a lot of whining about how she didn’t get where she wanted to be due to various roadblocks. Though I admire the grit, I do think some more self reflection could have gone into writing this book about her career.

Overall not a bad read, just could have maybe used a better editor to change the tone??

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook.

4.5 stars. The cover grasped my attention because surfing is one of the coolest sports in my opinion. Maya tells a great story of her life and all the struggles she faced in surfing and finding herself. As a young girl she experienced so much and she was able to share these things with readers. She speaks on family dynamic struggles when it comes to divorce, having a political figure as a parent, and finding meaning in her life that at times might be more important than her career.

Getting to hear Maya's voice throughout this book was powerful. You got to hear her emotion and truly get to feel how she felt. I loved hearing her voice and I think it better portrayed her story to readers versus someone else narrating her story.

I thought the ending of the book was abrupt and would have liked a little more explanation. Maya speaks often throughout the book about how all her physical struggles were actually untreated mental health issues. Towards the end, she realizes this and I would have liked to hear more about how she dealt with these (maybe in another book). She also briefly touched on getting back out into the water after some time and achieving her goals. I also would have liked to hear more about this.

This was an interesting memoir. I really enjoyed the first part of it, it felt raw and authentic. However, the second part was a bit repetitive and it felt too long.
The story is interesting but I wish we could have see in more depth the consequences of the accident and how she fought to be back on the board.

That was a ride, Gabeira's experience as a Brazilian woman in a sport dominated by men from the English speaking world was really enlightening.