The first installment cover
'Eve of Man' is a Young Adult/Dystopian trilogy, the first installment published in 2018 by author couple Giovanna & Tom Fletcher.
The story hypothesises a dystopian future in which the first girl, Eve, is born after a 50-year female drought to a world of men and corruption. Eve is taken control of by the EPO: the Eve Protection Organisation, and struggles with her adolescence spent in isolation and her impending Humanity-saving and life-changing pregnancy, only to fall in love with a boy, Bram, who controls her virtual-friend.
Provides examples of:
- All Men Are Perverts
- Abusive Parents: Bram's father. He's entirely uninterested in his son unless he can use him somehow.
- A flashback reveals his poor treatment of Bram's mother as well.
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Anvilicious: Do not mess with Mother Nature's grand plan, or society will crumble to nothing and an evil corporation will run your life. - Biblical Motifs:
- The Great Flood: This is what remains of civilisation, and is presumably caused by societal collapse because of the shortage of girls.
- Adam and Eve Plot
- Garden of Eden: An actual floor in The Tower, which has been constructed to lead Eve into believing she visits the outside world.
- Messianic Archetype: Eve.
- Tower of Babel: The Tower itself. This trope is played somewhat straight, as although it didn't offend 'God' literally in the book, Eve did manage to 'crumble' it when she escapes.
- Chekhov's Gun: The seemingly-insignificant Rubik's Cube eventually frees Eve from The Tower. Who would've thought?
- Aditionally, the glove-escape technology we hear SO much about eventually saves Eve and Bram from certain death.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Eve and Bram, although Bram was technically Holly, and Eve never knew who Bram was.
- Complexity Addiction: Bram and his team create an overly complex plan to rescue Eve that could've been made far easier, but, for the sake of action, we were given a whole chapter to watch their near-ridiculous plan unfold.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Mother Nature is NOT happy about EPO messing with the Human race. No wonder no girls are born.
- Girl in the Tower: The Tower was built to contain Eve.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Eve is saved by Mother Nina's sacrifice.
- Holographic Disguise: Holly, technically, as Bram pilots her.
- Kid Hero: Bram and most of the Feevers are teenage boys.
- La Résistance: The Freevers, a team of men and (remaining) women who campaign to free Eve and are relentlessly pursued by EPO.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Bram behaves very irrationally when he meets Eve in person.
- Mad Scientist: Most of EPO's staff, particularly Dr Wells, Bram's crazy father.
- Near-Rape Experience: A security guard corners Eve in the lift when he saves her, and almost rapes Eve but stops himself out of guilt and persuasion. He instead comforts the traumatised Eve.
- President Evil: Vivian Silva.
- Flat Character also applies.
- Purple Prose: Eve's chapters, basically.
- Smooch of Victory: Bram and Eve finally reunite with a kiss.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Eve and Bram fall in love despite their respective societal roles and jobs; Eve's being repopulating the Earth, Bram's being a corporate slave.
- Switching P.O.V.: The chapters alternate from both Eve and Bram's perspectives.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Bram seems ready to give up his life for Eve, despite never meeting her in the flesh and not under controlled conditions until a third into the book.
- The Law of Conservation of Detail: Subverted, as we hear a lot about what Eve is wearing which bears no relevance to the plot.
- Virgin in a White Dress: Eve, when presented to her suitors.
- Was It All a Lie?: When the truth about her reality surfaces, Eve realises her world was a carefully orchestrated lie done by Vivian Silva to protect and brainwash her.
- The symbolic garden where Eve seeks solace turns out to be another floor in the tower.
