Thanks, Freddy. I'm afraid "compelling" suffers special abuse by academic reviewers who, for professional reasons, believe they must review certain books they dislike.

Let's say, they need publication credits. Or they're experts in such narrow fields that few others are qualified to review a book and they feel they must take it on. In cases like those, "compelling" is a handy dodge, because who knows what it means?

As for "humbled": That one has a place all its own among literary embarrassments, and I hope to disembowel it soon in a discussion of humblebragging. Glad you've already purged it :).