I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.
The Fullmetal Alchemist light novels may not be great reads, but they're definitely not bad. Easy to get through, and the stories feel like something that could happen in the series. In fact, in some cases they were turned into filler episodes in the original anime. I don't think that was the case with this particular book, though.
This is the last book in the light novel series that I own. It looks like there might have been five total translated into English. I kind of want to read the rest, but I haven't decided yet whether it will be through interlibrary loan or purchases. I'll have to see what the library holdings numbers are like. On the plus side, if I do end up buying the rest, it looks like they're still in print and reasonably priced.