I'm not reading 5 books of 1000+ pages to get to the good parts, I'm sorry.
it's
all good (well, okay, book 10
did drag a bit) -- it's just that it keeps getting better as it goes. I never said that the first 5 books suck; quite the contrary -- as a matter of fact, even with book 2 being a bit of a low point, the first 5 are completely awesome. That would be like saying "I don't want to play a druid through 20 levels because I won't get shapechange until level 17". Additionally,
one annoying character doesn't ruin anything -- the thing is, she's intentionally annoying, and for good reason (as it relates to character development).
It just so happens that my very favorite scenes happen to be in 6, 9, and 11 (with specific ones in 4, 5 and 3 being up there pretty far).