Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine Review

A bestselling romance author flees to Alaska to reinvent herself and write her first murder mystery, but the rugged resort proprietor soon has her fearing she’s living in a rom-com plot instead in this earnestly spectacular debut by a stunning new voice.
 

Beloved romance author Margot Bradley has a dark she doesn’t believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers, and not even for her characters, for whom she secretly writes alternate endings that swap weddings and babies for divorce papers and the occasional slashed tire. When her Happily Never After document is hacked and released to the public, she finds herself canceled by her readers and dropped by her publisher.
 

Desperate to find a way to continue supporting her chronically ill sister, Savannah, Margot decides to trade meet-cutes for murder. The fictional kind. Probably. But when Savannah books Margot a six-week stay in a remote Alaskan resort to pen her first murder mystery, Margot finds herself running from a moose and leaping into the arms of the handsome proprietor, making her fear she’s just landed in a romance novel instead.
 

The last thing Dr. Forrest Wakefield ever expected was to leave his dream job as a cancer researcher to become a glorified bellhop. What he’s really doing at his family’s resort is caring for his stubborn, ailing father, and his puzzle-loving mind is slowly freezing over—until Margot shows up. But Forrest doesn’t have any room in his life for another person he could lose, especially one with a checkout date.
 

As long snowy nights and one unlikely trope after another draw Margot and Forrest together, they’ll each have to learn to overcome their fears and set their aside assumptions before Margot leaves—or risk becoming a Happily Never After story themselves.

Intentionally throwing its FMC Margo Bradley into countless romance tropes with a tongue-in-cheek sense of self-awareness, Victoria Lavine’s debut Any Trope But You is a solid and generally light-hearted contemporary romance novel that has a lot to like. Catering specifically to chick lit romance readers looking for an easy snowy-themed read, the story is largely predictable and sometimes cheesy, but in a wholesome and comforting way. Outside of the expected meet-cute and fish out of water wilderness romps, the novel also has added depth and substance with Margot’s sister and Forrest’s father’s fragile health. But the story as a whole largely keeps the tone light, making Any Trope But You an easy (albeit safe and slightly typical) romance recommendation.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being primarily drawn to this book by its hilarious sounding premise of a jaded romance writer being cancelled and inadvertently experiencing all the romance novel tropes she used herself in her past novels. While I’ve read an increasing number of romance novels as of late, I perhaps read them for different reasons than the typical romance reader and often find ironic enjoyment outside the humor that was intentionally planned. While the jaded or disheartened main character working in the romance publishing industry is a premise that’s getting more traction as of late (some notable examples that come to mind are Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, Book Lovers by Emily Henry, or First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison if you swap books for a radio station) Any Trope But You might be the first novel I’ve read where the main character gets revealed as a “fraud” and publicly cancelled. I know there are some less well-known books that also feature this, one of which I almost picked up on Kindle Unlimited but I could not find them again when I was writing this review.

While Margot being cancelled is primarily used as a plot mechanism, Any Trope But You also uses it as a character growth opportunity as the story gradually reveals the source and past events that tarnished her view of “happily ever after.” While the light-hearted humor and romantic tropes will likely be the biggest draw for most romance readers, the character drama involving Margot’s view on romance was the most interesting material for me. Without giving away any major spoilers, the story has a recurring theme involving family values, with both Margot and Forrest having made many personal sacrifices in order to care for Savannah and Trapper respectively. I found the complexity of Margot’s relationship and caregiving role to Savannah to be well done and a late plot twist involving their intertwined lives to be refreshingly unexpected and effectively written. While the overall start and end of the story are somewhat predictable, developments along the way do enough to keep things engaging.

As far as characters go, both Margot and Forrest fit into the traditional roles of romance novels, with Margot coming off as slightly more memorable of the two. While the novel obviously uses the enemies to lovers trope as well as the fish out of water trope, she’s a good balance between being confident and professional without being obnoxiously arrogant which is a common issue I have with a lot of jaded main characters. Her enemies to lovers trope with Forrest run entirely on the common miscommunication trope (a good portion her own doing), but her character is aware enough to realize how rude and silly she is to him which makes all the difference when it comes to the reading experience. I’m usually the type of romance reader that enjoys laughing at the main character’s failure in schadenfreude but between the cancellation and her horror at how cliched the entire Alaska trip is, by the half-way point it’s hard not to root for her.

“Oh, please. The PhD for a worthy cause? The muscles for days? The genetically inherited carpentry skills? The rolled shirtsleeves?” She points her wineglass toward my bare forearms as if they, above all else, prove her point. “Everything about… this,” she says, waving her hands and wineglass up and down to indicate my entire being, “is straight out of an overserved romance novel. And I would know!” she cries. “I write them!”

While Margot is pretty well-developed, I found Forrest to be far less distinctive due to the novel’s base premise requiring that he coincidentally fit numerous romance love-interest tropes. You have the huge hulking stature with a Greek god chiseled physique, the rough exterior with a heart of gold, off-limits man with a tragic past, etc etc. (see Margot’s own words above). Despite Lavine attempting to run with a light satirical tone and to humanize Forrest as a complicated real person, unfortunately he doesn’t deviate enough to break out of the stereotypical role compared to Margot. Part of that may be by design to prove to Margot that her happily ever after and perfect match can actually exist, but the story repeatedly mentions how their lives are messy and not like fiction seems to suggest otherwise.

The story also has a split-perspective presentation, though the chapters and pages are not evenly split between the two of them. About two thirds of the novel is from Margot’s perspective while about one third is from Forrest’s. Having less pages to work with, it’s partially understandable that Forrest seems to have less development than Margot. However, I consistently found his perspective to be less interesting, more repetitive, and lacking the nuance and character dynamics of Margot’s chapters (Savannah’s influence on Margot’s internalized decision-making is considerably more complicated and unique compared to Forrest and Trapper’s more typical predicament). Throughout her time in Alaska, Margot receives weekly prewritten letters from Savannah that explain the rationale behind Margot forced wilderness experience as well as providing a glimpse into their childhood and past experiences. Savannah’s letters are without doubt the best and most ambitious parts of the novel that not only are strong character moments, but also brief snapshots of Lavine’s more dramatic and mature writing chops. By contrast, Forrest doesn’t really have any remotely equivalent material and if not for the chapters from his perspective, he feels more like a supporting character for Margot’s story rather than being a paired counterpart. Additionally, the shifts to Forrest’s perspective tend to happen when notable plot twists or developments occur where it would be more impactful for the reader to not know what Margot is feeling or thinking in the moment. While his chapters are not necessarily boring or bad per say, I often found myself looking forward to the story shifting back to Margot’s perspective. Perhaps if he had a more notable flaw apart from being overly caring and self-sacrificial or some kind of odd character quirk, he would’ve been more memorable or interesting to me.

Featuring a straightforward prose that’s on-brand for the genre, Any Trope But You’s overall tone and style is quite modern. From frequent pop culture references about Taylor Swift’s comeback via her “Taylor’s version” to its heavy featuring of bookstagram, Lavine is fully aware of the romance readers community and embraces it. Interestingly, despite how modern and self-aware it is, the novel notably omits booktok, no doubt given the uncertainty of the platform’s future when the timeline when this manuscript would’ve been finalized by. Following Margot’s disastrous leaked “Happily Never After” personal journal, the novel does a great job at portraying social media cancel culture, deeming her “problematic” and “controversial”. Throughout the story, one of the highlights of the novel is Margot’s (and by extension, Victoria Lavine’s) understanding of the joys and passion of her fans and how much romance novels mean to them. While she herself may not believe in romance and happily ever afters, she’s aware that her readers do and understands the betrayal and conflicting emotions they feel following her data leak. The character growth Margot experiences over the course of the story is great and while the ending is perhaps a tad rushed (the story does not have an epilogue-style ending which would’ve addressed other reviews that wanted more time with them being sweet together), I found it to be competently written and the last twenty percent of the book bringing up my overall rating and impression of the book.

“What I didn’t understand about Happily Ever After is that there are some people who come into your life—even for just a moment—who have the power to fundamentally change you forever. They’re the people who see right through all your masks, and all your bullshit, and love you anyway. And not just despite all your wounds but because of them too. You’re safe in their hands for as long as you can hold on to each other, but even when it’s time to part ways, you leave knowing you’ve been truly seen.” I pause, carefully wiping beneath my eyes, and take a breath. “You leave knowing you’ll spend the rest of your life looking back on the time you had together with sadness, yes, but joy and thankfulness too.”

While the novel certainly has comedic elements courtesy of the frequent romance tropes and has a few mature character drama moments via Savannah’s letters and Margot/Forrest’s past losses, Any Trope But You sort of fell into an unfortunate happy medium between the two. Perhaps it may be my own high expectations given the premise and the book’s title, but while it was often humorous, I personally found the humor amusing but not quite comedic or ironic enough to satirize the tropes it was referencing. Instead of being a smart satire or taking the opposite approach of fully embracing the cringe and embarrassing elements, the story falls into an odd compromise that’s less ambitious or distinctive than I would’ve liked. Additionally, while the novel explores themes of grief, loss and self-sacrifice, I also found myself wanting the character drama to go further. All the elements were there for Margot’s side (I would’ve liked more letters from Savannah as they featured Lavine’s best writing and complex character relations) but Forrest’s side left me underwhelmed. While the novel as-is is certainly mass-appealing and a very comfortably safe read, I would’ve appreciated it if it went further in either direction with stronger humor or spending more time on its character’s growth and drama. Yes, I know that this is primarily a romance novel and neither are the main goal of the genre, but Forrest’s ah-hah moment and development is so brief and rushed compared to Margot).

Simultaneously joking around while also embodying numerous romance tropes like its title suggests, Any Trope But You is a quick and easy read that’s a safe recommendation for all romance and chick lit readers. A mix of light humor contrasted by deeper character moments (plus some open door-style spice), this novel is written and catered directly to fans of the genre. That said, while the drama is almost entirely trigger-free and isn’t remotely unpleasant, it lacked the depth or strong introspective reflections that separate my top-tier favorite romance novels from the rest of the genre. However, despite wanting more from the story, Any Trope But You is a solid novel for a cozy time and is a competent and well-rounded debut worth picking up!