You need to love the books to have any idea what's going on, but if you love the books you will be disgusted or at least confused by the changes.
This isn't an adaptation. Rafe & Co. deleted the entire first book except the absolute most major plot points, then re-wrote it. As if that wasn't enough, their writing skills are nothing compared to Robert Jordan, and they had so little respect for the source material it borders on disdain.
They kept adding things that were in direct contradiction to the books. This was bad, but then they seemed to forget their own alterations. The result of a show that has little internal consistency, terrible pacing, opaque lore, no sense of exploration and discovery, and characters that neither feel lovable, nor menacing, nor even relatable in many cases.
This is hands down the worst adaptation I have ever seen, with the possible exception of Shannara.