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Let's get the bad out of the way first: The extended title of this book is an outright lie. Some stories are interesting, and some are pretty boring, but none of them are "captivating".
I still recommend the book (I have even gifted copies to two friends!) to anyone starting out with reading in Japanese for one reason: It was the first book without pictures that i could actually read without a dictionary, which felt great. While the stories aren't super exciting per se, most were interesting enough to hold my attention during the part that actually excited me - figuring out what the sentences mean, and getting better at reading in the process.
In the end, despite the book's shortcomings in the entertainment department, I'm glad I found it, and I have already bought "Intermediate Japanese Short Stories" to continue. This time I'm trying the audio book version to see if I can use it to improve my listening comprehension.
PS: The Audible version comes with a free PDF of the book.