“She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?"
“The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer."
“When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear"
I read the first one, and was really let down. I waited twenty years for those books to be released and it was so bad it felt like a slap in the face, to the point I became concerned for the author's cognitive health as I couldn't think of any other explanation for the precipitous decline in quality.
The audible version was decent, I reread them all on audiobook ahead of the HBO series and wasn't wowed but I wasn't annoyed either. That part in Amber Spyglass still made me cry so that's a kind of endorsement.