“Hold on a minute,” Lucky said. So far, the stories weren’t making things any clearer. “I don’t get it. Did someone give us the spoons?”

“Well, yes, in a manner of speaking,” Meena said.

“But I found mine. You both found yours.”

“In a secret tunnel off your basement?” Lettie replied. “Really? Hanging from a spider web in a graveyard on a specific day? At the bottom of a box of donated books? Statistically improbable.”

“Never mind probability, what about the laws of nature? The world cannot be just a series of randoms,” Freya chimed in. “Might as well believe in some beardo in the sky.”

It’s a book about spoons.

And witches, of course.

“Well, I know there are Wiccans, right? Like a religion?” No one gave her any indication she was on the right path, so she kept talking. “And there are Halloween witches—like vampires and demons and all that. And I know about the bullshit witch trials. Thousands of women burned at the stake for being smart or queer or loud. I guess that’s about it.”

But really about spoons.

It’s not really an urban fantasy / magic hiding in our world sort of story. There’s magic, but it takes a while and even then it’s rare and subtle. Which could very well be exactly what you’re looking for. But I was hoping for something a bit more.

On the other hand, I really did enjoy the dynamic between Lucky and Stella. Seeing a granddaughter taking care of her grandmother who’s getting on in years while they both go on one big adventure isn’t the story I often get into.

Villain/plotwise… I actually could have done without. What we get is entirely overblown and underdone at the same time, if that makes any sort of sense. He felt a caricature of a villain but we all knew they’d beat him in the end, for no real cost.

“And this is why we are taking it back, the magic, the control, all of it. Because you were never capable of handling it in the first place.”
…
“Too vain, too self-important. Even trying to mansplain the apocalypse.”
…
“Maybe the end your kind has brought is not the end of the whole world. Maybe it’s just the end of your world.”

Honestly, it could have been the witches versus the world, with smaller stakes throughout and I think I would have liked it all the more.

Overall, it’s fine. You might even like it far more than I did, especially knowing what you’re in for. Onward!