The Bear Hunter’s Daughters presents a modernized but still thematically resonant adaptation of the 1870 Finnish classic The Seven Brothers. I will caveat that I have not read the original.
The siblings’ personalities and relationships with each other felt very distinct. Jordahl slips between perspectives to give the reader a sense of each sibling’s mentality. To that end, all the characters are extremely flawed and realistic people. I especially enjoyed the complicated familial relationships, and thought the mother especially was well-characterized, heartbreakingly so.
The daughters’ survival in the woods felt well-anchored in Finnish wilderness. Of note is that these girls are feral – they injure each other and belch and at times are generally wild, which is a detail (probably from the original) that I appreciate, both in terms of realistic characterization and in detailing their movement from wilderness to civilization.
Overall, Jordahl does a good job of keeping the plot tense while also allowing for more humorous and emotional moments.

This book follows seven sisters in the forests of western Finland who are left to fend for themselves after the sudden deaths of their parents. Torn between preserving their father’s rugged, off-the-grid ways and yielding to the town’s offers of help, the sisters struggle with independence, identity, and the pull of the outside world. Richly atmospheric and deeply human, the novel explores resilience, sisterhood, and the fragile beauty of life bound to nature.