I wanted a cute, candy read. A Hallmark movie in book form. Set in the remote wilderness of Alaska with a romance author from California and the hunky lumberjack son of the proprietor of the resort she’s staying at? That sounds like a delicious candy book.
And Victoria Lavine’s Any Trope But You (Atria 2025) IS cute, don’t get me wrong, but parts of it just hurt my teeth.
Margot is a very famous romance author who had a bit of fall from grace when her secret files of alternate endings become public. Since the world now knows she doesn’t believe in HEA, maybe it’s time for a murder mystery. She is tiny and gorgeous, a biting ray of sunshine and very much a fish out of water in Alaska .
Forrest is the compilation of every leading male in all her novels. He works at the Alaskan resort, a towering lumber jack of a man, who just so happens to be a doctor studying breast cancer. He is wicked intelligent – a true Doogie Howser with a heart of gold. He’d left a prominent position in California to return to Alaska after his father became injured.
It’s insta-lust when Margot launches herself into his arms after being scared by a half-tamed moose she thought was a bear. (Let’s be real – there should have been more Bullwinkle.) The tropes stack up, as expected, and her cheeky reaction to the tropes as they unfold in her actual life are pretty fun, but that loses steam by the midway mark.
They become unreasonably head-over-heels in love with each other, without even knowing much of anything about each other. (Hate it.) The focus on the “he’s so big” element also grew tiresome; if I had to read one more time about how tiny she was and how massive he was, I would have vomited. (The business end of a ball bat, eh?) Both of them need hardcore therapy, and this relationship is a bandaid over their broken bits. (Fix yourself, people. Just because he fills your holes, doesn’t mean he heals your soul.)
That brings me to the spice. Margot jokes that her and Forrest’s love story is Hallmark meets Pornhub – and that kind of nails the novel as well. (Pun intended.) I’m sorry – it was just as cringe as the spice scenes Margot and her sister mock early on in the novel. Not all of them – but a lot of them. (I loved the tent scene – but I enjoy one bed tropes.)
In conclusion, it’s cute. It’s a quick read. You know there will be a HEA (but let’s be real, one of Margot’s alternate endings is more likely with two people so in need of selfwork) and there is some heat.
A Girl Named Tommi 