Target language: English
The media has described the series in a very positive way. But to really understand it, I recommend that you read the books in chronological order.
I didn't do that, and as a result it became very hard to understand the characters, due the fact that they had been introduced in the previous books, at the end it became easier to follow.
Another negative aspect with book(in my opinion) was that nothing major happened, it only describes small troubles/problems.
That affected my reading experience in a negative way as it wasn't that much fun to read the book.