HS:BC starts with the thoroughly weird situation reached at the end of the Epilogues, so there's that to consider.

I found parts of the Epilogue a bit of a slog, but I liked the story and coped with the more disturbing elements just fine, thanks. Worth going in with the thought that this is not the tale of the "happily ever after," it's a tale of life continuing and exciting new bad things happening, many of them done by characters we like. Hussie didn't exactly handle the characters with kid gloves in the original comic, and the Epilogues continue with that.