Elantris

I originally started to listening to this on Audiobook, and quite frankly, found the narration awful to say the least. I don't know if anyone has heard the audible massacre of the book, but if they have and they liked it, I am sorry to have put forth such a polarising viewpoint. But I am sticking with it and not changing my mind.
However, in light of this I ended up getting the print version and carried on where I so vehemently left the audio book. Thank god I did!

Now, I have read a lot of reviews that state that a lot of people tend to start with Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy or Stormlight Archive and read this retrospectively. Which is what I did. In terms of a debut, it's good. It does not fall into typical fantasy tropes in some ways, but it does in others.
The begining of the book really does give a sense of unease when it describes the main characters change in circumstance and you think it cannot keep up this pace. And it does not. I think that when it does get to the middle of the book, it does drop off a bit.

The characters are good and you do tend to believe in them, particularly Sarene. Hrathen starts off as a two dimensional character but really does get fleshed out in the book

At times, I think the structure of the book does tend to hamper the story a bit. It changes viewpoints between the three main characters and at times I found this impeded the main story. However, I did enjoy the book. Just a few niggles.