short fiction/intro to world of villains series
quick, half-hour story. I liked it, but it wasn't really a whole book--more like a preview trailer for the series. ( )

This short story set in the same world as Villains was surprisingly good for such a brief read. While I enjoyed the long-form dive more, it helps empathize more with some of the struggles facing other characters in the world. ( )

It didn’t catch fire. Nothing ever actually caught fire.
No, it all simply burned.

Oof, this was dark and eerie and sad. Very well done. ( )

I slapped a "horror" tag on this one, just because the plot (such as it is) actually fits a common pattern for the horror genre, despite it being part of a series that has not really been horror in the other two volumes I read so far.

It's not just short. It feels abbreviated. Its title is a bit clever, given the content. The villain of the piece is recognizable from the two full-length novels that have been published in this series so far, but only barely; he comes off as a somewhat different person, during his very brief presence in this.

It fell a bit flat for me, overall, and it is very far from anything like essential reading. In some respects, it felt like perhaps the author wrote it as a warm-up for the other stories, for a little more cleverness pertaining to the title. ( )

It's fine, nothing special. ( )