I recently finished watching the first season, and it was brilliant. The back and forth in time they did made the story so much more enjoyable. There are some seasoned actors in the show, and even the ones you've rarely seen before manage to pull off a great performance. The series doesn't follow the book exactly, but does it well enough that it all works well. I will admit that I found this series by accident while searching through HBOMax, and I just decided to take a chance on it when I first saw it. I'm so glad that I did.