Goodkind is an awkward, unskilled writer.
For years I would hear something good about this book, pick it up, then put it right back down again.
The first few chapters are by far the worst. They read as if Goodkind wrote them when he was a much younger man; then squirreled them away in a trunk somewhere, only to find them again 15 years later and decide to continue the novel without editing the first chapters one bit.
If you can manage to suffer through those first chapters, you'll be treated to a slight improvement in craft and a bland, well-trodden storyscape involving a land sealed off from magic and a battle between good and evil.
There are so many good books in the fantasy genre. This is not one of them. It is, rather, the beginning of a great time sink of a series. Do yourself a favor and pick up some George R. Martin or Melanie Rawn or Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. They're all much, much more skilled practitioners of medieval high fantasy than Goodkind.