Just understand that NOTHING in that book series is part of Star Wars canon. Personally, I'd say skip it (it has a LOT of stupid stuff, despite what the people who view it through nostalgia goggles will tell you) and it's pointless because it doesn't apply to Star Wars now, anyway.

I read them back when they were published. They were good for the time because we didn't have much Star Wars stuff back then. In hindsight, I think there's a lot of awful, outdated, silly stuff in them. I think directing new readers and fans to those books is a bad thing, because it's just setting them up to read what is now the equivalent of weak fan fiction. They simply do not hold up anymore. Zahn became a much better writer after those books. His newer Thrawn books are much better, in my opinion. They're less goofy.

This is an unpopular opinion, though. Like I said, a lot of fans gush over those books because they have warm-fuzzy memories of reading them, and because they developed a live-vicariously-through-Luke attitude and really dug the idea of Luke getting a hot redheaded naughty girlfriend.