Wizard's First Rule, by Terry Goodkind

I found it tough to care deeply about the heroes of the book because they weren't proactive very often. They were mostly reacting to the plans and schemes of the villian and, oddly, I was more interested in the villian than the heroes, even though the villian is clearly despicable (that's right, daffy!). I also had a problem with the use of magic. New powers and rules were "invented" as the book went along, and it seemed like a cop-out to use magic to solve problems. Overall, I thought it was just so-so--but maybe my expectations were too high.