I can't believe it has taken me this long to finally discover this series, but I finally picked up the first book two months ago and I ended up having a fantastic time with it. I decided to read this short story prequel first before picking up the second book... And this is where I might have gone wrong, because The Very First Damned Thing didn't quite hit home as much as I thought it would. I think I would have benefitted from reading at least a couple more sequels to get to know the characters even more before picking up this prequel... As it is, there were parts of the story that ended up dragging a bit. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Waterloo scenes and it did have that same humor I loved in the first book especially in the first half, but there were also parts that ended up being quite dull and repetitive. And then I'm not even talking about the overload of characters along the way... Like I said, reading at least a couple books first would have probably made it easier to remember and place all the names. I can't deny that it was still a solid enough prequel and I can't wait to read book two soon.