Love the series, but I am going to be honest, parts of redundancy really annoy me. I think it adds fun lore to the series, except for novel 3, where I think Novel 1: Well written, good addition to the series. Big fan of how this gives us additional details about our main characters being parents. This is a theme throughout all of them, but it starts here. Not as good as book 2, but cool nonetheless. Novel 2: Best of the three by far. The story with the kids and Rudeus's Grandma makes it all worth it in the end. It unfortunately does hint atevents in Novel 3 that I am not a big fan of.

Novel 3: Read it for yourself, but I am not a big fan of the big plot point in this book. I get that it's something that would happen in this type of world, but I could do without this kind of thing in my stories. Not going to moralize, still worth reading if you have made it this far.

Ultimately, read them if you are looking for more Mushoku Tensei. They are not required reads, but have cool after stories that show off how Rudeus and his family got on after the main story and before his death.