This book was very much an impulse purchase at ConFusion, heavily influenced by the fact that it was blurbed by Carlos Hernandez on the back.

It was fine. I read it out loud to the whole family for one of our bedtime story books, and the kids liked it. My sense of justice was strongly violated by all the stealing, and nastiness, and the complete lack of concern for the impacts of their actions on others, on the part of both human and goblin characters. Basically I neither liked nor cared about anyone in this book.

There have been a number of family story time books that one or both of the kids have noted out of because they thought a character was too mean or too negative, but they had nary a complaint about this one, so it could entirely be a matter of I am not the intended audience for this one.

But I was stressed out by this book basically 100% of the time. ( )

This is a fun fantasy middle grade book that has fun and also reminds kids about the power of words. Goblins come over to our side of the world and steal words that the speaker has said without any true feeling behind them. Sam has found that “sorry” is a great word to get him out of trouble and make things easier. When an goblin and his grandmother cross into our world to take those words to power their magic, Sam finds that life is very tough without it. To make matters worse the young goblin also takes “regret” and “apologize”. Sam finds out just how hard it is when he can no longer apologize to his friend about something he said to upset her on the last day. And now he must find a way to get his words back and make things right with his friend.

The magic world of the goblins was interesting and some readers may want to see more of how life is for them and how they go about using thoughtless words to fuel their magic. There is some technology innovations on that side that are causing issues for them and I could see more books set in this world.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
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A fantasy book that's a chore to complete? Nope. This book just never has enough steam to move past a slow wallow of things keep getting worse until they don't. ( )