Diverting means entertaining and taking your mind off things. A diverting book, mildly diverting, a diverting hour.
It is faint praise: calling something diverting says it passed the time pleasantly and no more, which is why reviewers use it about work they cannot dislike or admire. It is slightly old-fashioned. Note divert, from the Latin for turning aside — a diversion turns your attention away.
1adjectivedivertingEntertaining and taking your mind off things.
“The puzzle book was a diverting way to spend the long flight.”
diverting is a quality of entertainment.
Proto-Indo-European
*wert-
Latin
di- — apart
Old French
divertir — to turn or go different ways, part, separate, divert
Middle English
diverten
English
divert
English, today
diverting
Built from
divert comes from Middle English diverten, Old French divertir (“to turn or go different ways, part, separate, divert”), from Latin di- (“apart”) + vertere (“to turn”); see verse.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA