Wheel of Time

I may have been overstating it by saying "first 3 books", but it's at least most of the first 2. I just went through my chat history with my sister where I basically live blogged my first reading of the series. It included such gems as:

from book 1, and

Can’t stand Mat. Constant whiner.

In book 2.

Though he's not without good moments in the earlier books too:

I'm not sure what book this was from:

but clearly my read on Mat had not changed by this point, though it's possible it had started shifting. By the time he goes to help collect the Bowl of Winds my opinion had more or less changed. And definitely by the later books I really enjoyed his character.

I think he starts becoming a really good character after he's gone through the ter'angreal in Rhuidean.