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Book: “We’re Not Safe Here” by Rin Chupeco
Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, November 2025
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: Wispy Falls’ town motto is: “You’ll be safe here!” But that doesn’t seem to be true. Because in Wispy Falls, monsters live in the woods, and children go missing, and the bodies are beginning to stack up.
A seventeen-year-old vlogger known as Storymancer is determined to get to the bottom of what’s wrong in Wispy Falls. A few years ago his six-year-old brother went missing in the woods and no one in town seemed to care enough to find him.
So now he’s investigating why every household participates in something called the Bloodmoon Ritual, why cryptid sightings are so common, and why everyone who goes into the woods goes missing. If he can’t fix what’s wrong with the town, he just might be the next body in the woods.
Told primarily through video transcripts, message boards, and radio shows, this Welcome to Nightvale-inspired horror will chill you to your core.
Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel!
It’s been awhile since I read a Rin Chupeco book, not necessarily because I was avoiding it (on the contrary, I’ve enjoyed basically all of the Chupeco books I’ve read!), but just because I lose track of authors sometimes. So when “We’re Not Safe Here” ended up in my mailbox I was excited to say the least. And reading the description of the book made me all the more interested. I love a found footage/media story format, I like the idea of weird dangerous cryptids lurking outside a strange town, and if you’re going to reference “Welcome to Night Vale” I’m going to be all the more intrigued. Quirky and weird podcast reference from awhile back in my personal lore? Yes please! I went in with pretty optimistic expectations. But I’m sorry to say that “We’re Not Safe Here” didn’t live up to the expectations I had.
But first the good. The description does reference the podcast “Welcome to Night Vale”, which was a huge incentive for me to read it because I was REALLY into “Night Vale” for a few years back in the day (I kind of lost interest after the StrexCorp storyline wrapped up). And as I was reading it I definitely got the “Night Vale” vibes, with the found media transcripts of broadcasts and the generally casual speak of cryptids and monsters stalking to woods really harkening to the charm of that podcast that really pulled me in. I also loved some of the gnarly descriptions of the various cryptids, especially The Backwards Lady. Because man, do I LOVE a weirdly misshapen and creepy and menacing lady whose face you cannot see. Chupeco has always done a really good job of taking on these kinds of unsettling horror tropes, and the concept of all of these cryptids and the found footage transcriptions really was incredibly interesting and promising for a horror novel. Top tier concept for sure.
Unfortunately, it never really quite came together. I feel like we were getting hints throughout our transcripts and video descriptions and chat logs and message boards, but it felt like it kept going on and on and there wasn’t really much steady build up. It was more of a continual stall out. I also found a lot of aspects of it to be pretty confusing. I had to keep paging back earlier to double check my facts, and I don’t know if it was because of the format of so much transcription and video footage or if it was something else. And by the time we did get to the end I felt like there were a lot of questions that remained unanswered, as well as a really abrupt end which felt unsatisfying. It was such a shame because I generally have enjoyed the books that Chupeco has put out in the past, and this one felt like such a miss it was kind of shocking.
“We’re Not Safe Here” had a great concept and premise but didn’t execute it super well. I’d sadly have to say skip it.
Rating 5: A great concept with some nice callbacks to “Welcome To Night Vale”, but it dragged a bit by the end and felt rushed and muddled.
Reader’s Advisory:
“We’re Not Safe Here” is included on the Goodreads list “Midnight Reads”.
The Library Ladies 