This is a visually stunning series, with incredible imagery. The acting is fantastic, and the director keeps a consistent mood throughout, which is pretty similar to the book. The overall points in the narrative and the chapters are also pretty similar to the book. The quality of this series is high enough I'm giving it eight stars.
However, the TV series tells a very different story than the book. Unfortunately, I read the book first, and prefer it.
Almost all of the characters in the series feel far more two-dimensional than in the book, with the exception of Ridgeway. The TV series gives Ridgeway more backstory that makes his actions seem more nuanced. The book gives just enough background to establish that Ridgeway has a pattern-he clearly cares about some things, but human lives are only a small part of his moral equation. He's more opaque in the book, which makes his actions there more terrifying, in my opinion.
Cora is more of an active agent in her decisions and fates in the book than in the TV series. In the series, things just seem to happen to her, and the only way she seems able to play much of a role for over half the series is to cry. The book version of Cora is resilient, tenacious, adaptive. That's not to say that things always go great for her, but she refuses to be a passive bystander.
Normally, I'd give the series a six for doing wrong to the main characters that way, but I think this series still tells an important story and tells it well...it's just less nuanced than the book.
