Dystopian Satire
Character Pages: (Anna) Annie Martin, Annie (Elsa) Misty Martin, Misty (Garfield) Garf Von Wert Garf
Told through three points of view, Tide Girl takes place in 2050 when middle-class children are sponsored by corporations for 18 years in exchange for college tuition—something that is, otherwise, unavailable to all but the elite. Annie, one of the first branded children, plans to claim her free tuition and live the dream that she’s long shared with her beloved cousin Misty to cast off their corporate Tide T-shirts and live a commercial-free life. The only problem: Misty has cold feet and accepts corporate funding to stay in the public eye. Meanwhile, marketing phenom Garfield (Garf) VonWert strives to get a tenure track deal to restore his bruised ego as his company— through which he pioneered the concept of branded children—heads toward bankruptcy. On campus Annie, lonely and still seething from Misty’s betrayal, joins the campus anti-branding activist group. In contrast, Misty dreams of a corporatized future but is discouraged by her interactions with branded men and seeks to change branded society from within, becoming a mentee of Garf. When the activist group guns for Garf, he seduces Annie in a desperate bid to learn about the anti-branders and keep his tenure-track deal rather than return to his humble roots and Annie must choose between the branded world of her cousin and new lover Garf and that of the anti-branded activist group whose ideas she has come to embrace. In this world