I started WOT in middle school I think - I was a huge fan of LOTR, and at the time was going through the Dragonriders of Pern series. Someone had told me about WOT, and I checked it out at the book store. Originally when I read about it it didn't seem appealing, I can't quite remember why. Also, I think when I was in middle school there were already a bunch of them out, and that felt a bit daunting.
However, after Dragonriders I read a few more books that started to whet my appetite for fantasy a bit more and I dove in. Never regretted it since.
Not on topic at all, but thinking about books back then reminded me of what I cannot remember the name of; hoping maybe someone here can.
All I really remember is that the main character is a chick of some warrior society, though all the women are conjurers. She has tits and long hair, where all the others tend to cut their hair short and have small bosoms. When she comes of age, she must enter an arena, naked, and win the battle using only her conjuring abilities. She wins the battle, the man she defeats must become like a slave to her (although they end up as best friends) and she ends up running away from her home because the Empress or Queen or whatever, hated her mother and now wants to kill her talented daughter.
She ends up encountering a bunch of weird stuff; things I remember happening are she gets a tribe of warriors drunk on conjured wine that they love, and the bonus is she can desummon it, leaving them without headaches, and also quickly diffusing violence and bad situations that should arise. She falls in love with some guy, who changes into a woman whenever they make love, and as a woman she has a male lover.
The entire time she's traveling she gets better at conjuring, until the inevitable happens and she has to challenge the Queen. Months spent honing her skill allow her to summon 3x more than the Queen and kill her.
I have a feeling that the book is possibly something completely obvious, but the answer has been evading me. Hell, I can't even remember if it was good or not, but it's bugging me that I can't remember.
Edit: Shit, be careful with the wiki and some of the summaries. Ran into a spoiler from 14 that was not specifically major but sucked nonetheless. Had no warning, and had no idea what I was reading until they mentioned a name and I got really confused on the timeline.