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D-Card
In the year 2030, business is flourishing for psych science who is able to answer the question of when a life will end. At an early age, individuals are given their D-Cards which have the exact date, time, and reason of their death. The information found on there D-Card determines what job they could obtain, the education they could receive, and would lay down the foundation for their future.
On the day after Zooey Rivera's parents' funeral, she is visited by Ryder Wenthouse, a graduate student who helped Zooey's parents in there mysterious research. Following Ryder Wenthouse's lead, Zooey begins a journey that will open her eyes to who her parents really were and answer if a person was more than the number of their D-Card.
On the day after Zooey Rivera's parents' funeral, she is visited by Ryder Wenthouse, a graduate student who helped Zooey's parents in there mysterious research. Following Ryder Wenthouse's lead, Zooey begins a journey that will open her eyes to who her parents really were and answer if a person was more than the number of their D-Card.
- GenresFantasyScience Fiction
214 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2013
About the author
Jean Gordon
1 book4 followers Jean Gordon is an author and English teacher living in Missouri.
Jean is from St. James, Missouri, where she graduated salutatorian from her high school class. She attended college at Drury University in Springfield, MO, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, first honors. Her junior year of college, Jean studied English Literature in London, England at Regents College. She was also the opinions editor of her school paper. During summers, Jean was a writer for the a small newspaper in Cuba, Missouri.
Additionally, Jean took graduate coursework in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Missouri Baptist University. Since, she has been employed as an English teacher at the Crawford County R-II School District, where she currently teaches 7th grade Communication Arts. She is certified in middle and high school Language Arts, as well as Library Media Specialist, K-12.
Jean's first novel is set to be released on October 1, 2013. The novel is of the young adult/suspense genre and has been published by Tate Publishing.
Aside from being a writer and teacher, Jean shows Akitas. She also enjoys theater and has been a season ticket holder to The Muny in St. Louis for five years.
Jean is from St. James, Missouri, where she graduated salutatorian from her high school class. She attended college at Drury University in Springfield, MO, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, first honors. Her junior year of college, Jean studied English Literature in London, England at Regents College. She was also the opinions editor of her school paper. During summers, Jean was a writer for the a small newspaper in Cuba, Missouri.
Additionally, Jean took graduate coursework in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Missouri Baptist University. Since, she has been employed as an English teacher at the Crawford County R-II School District, where she currently teaches 7th grade Communication Arts. She is certified in middle and high school Language Arts, as well as Library Media Specialist, K-12.
Jean's first novel is set to be released on October 1, 2013. The novel is of the young adult/suspense genre and has been published by Tate Publishing.
Aside from being a writer and teacher, Jean shows Akitas. She also enjoys theater and has been a season ticket holder to The Muny in St. Louis for five years.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 13, 2013
*I received a copy of D-card for free, as a First Reads win. This did not affect my rating or review of the book.*
In all fairness, I'm not entirely clear on what point in the publication process my copy of D-card represents. I'm going to make my best effort to respect that fact, the fact that I'm not positive that this was the final draft. That being said...
The central concept behind D-card was certainly interesting, which is why I wanted to read it in the first place. The D-cards themselves were certainly the most thought-out aspect of the book, including the consequences of D-cards on other areas of life--education, medicine, social stigmas, etc. The near-future aspect was also pretty well-treated and non-intrusive. I especially liked a very subtle mention that a new Disney princess had been added somewhere between now and 2030. I had very little trouble accepting Gordon's world as a sixteen-year future version of our own.
I can even sense some interesting work going on in the theming. On the big, conceptual level, the themes were accessible to young adults--keeping secrets from loved ones, peer pressure, crises of faith, and the meaning of life, to name a few.
But that wasn't enough to save D-card from itself. Try as I might to remind myself of the positives, there are some things I just can't forgive.
I was stunned by the poor quality of the writing. I never start any book expecting every comma to be in place, but the level of grammatical error in this book, especially for a draft nearing completion, was unacceptable. And I'm not just referring to things like using the incorrect version of "to" (although that happens at least twice). The entire text was fraught with poor writing that I would never expect to come from an English teacher. Eventually this got so out of hand that I started taking notes. Here's a brief except:
"Things go array" instead of "things go awry".
"They use to" instead of "they used to".
"Worse case scenario" instead of "worst case".
"Darting passed her" instead of "darting past".
"She lied down in the snow" instead of "lay down".
Those are just a few examples. Then there are the moments when the writing, while not necessarily grammatically incorrect, was simply bad.
"She didn't feel good. She felt bad."
"[Men were] throwing random things into a fire."
"What difference did her life matter?"
"...a half drank bottle of water..."
Again, this is a brief excerpt of my notes, which I only started taking after about page 80. At this point I had already accepted that I would never be able to fully invest myself in the story or characters, because the intrusively poor writing was far too distracting. Based on the writing alone, I could not in good conscience rate this book above one star.
Unfortunately, I also feel like I need to mention the clumsy handling of the plot and the themes. Like I said, these were both interesting at the conceptual level, but the execution simply wasn't there.
The central theme driving the book was a classic faith-versus-science struggle. However, what Ms. Gordon has chosen to represent the evil "science"
Now. To be fair, the Christian overtones of the book are generally not trumpeted directly. The religion is pretty generalized (very rarely does capital-G "God" even appear). But it doesn't take a lot of reading between the lines to know that what we're really doing here is saying that what's wrong with this world is a lack of faith in a designing creator (we'll call him "God"), and a disappearance of what Ms. Gordon does actually refer to as "Christian beliefs". Observe...
Ryder and Zooey, the characters who represent the "faith" side, are abstinent (paraphrased from text: "My faith would have to be really important to me if I'm passing up the opportunity to sleep with a hottie like you!"). In fact, Zooey likens "dating a religious man" to finding a Disney Prince Charming. Our chaste young loves don't drink or smoke. They do well in school (grad school for Ryder, Northwestern for Zooey). They are generally well-liked. They display selfless kindness and charity. Only cited reason for their superiority? Faith. This elevates them FAR beyond the cesspool of teenage debauchery represented by Aaliya and her peers.
Aaliya (aka "science", aka "trusts in her D-card"): is ALWAYS described as wearing indecent clothing, has casual sex, is called a "whore" and a "slut", drinks to excess, sneaks out her bedroom window, and is keeping a life-threatening secret from her parents. All of this for NO OTHER cited reason than a lack of faith. Case and point: Well done, Zooey. Soul saved.
I'm not mad at the book expressly for touting Christianity. Treating religious content is any author's right. But I'm more than a little insulted by the implications here that "morality = faith". (I also, for the record, HAVE NOT STATED and will not state in this review what my religious beliefs are, one way or the other. So no accusations on that front, please.)
And just to prove that my objections aren't all religious in nature...
We are told that "only one percent of D-cards are ever wrong!" However, if exactly one percent of the current US population had incorrect D-cards, we're still talking about three MILLION people in the US alone. Or, on a more personal level, one out of every hundred people Zooey met would still have an incorrect D-card. The average Facebook user has over 200 friends. So equating a one-percent error rate with perfection is questionable.
...
Again, I recognize that this might or might not be a final draft, but given all that was wrong with it, I really didn't feel I had a choice but to give D-card one star. Even if a new draft came out with every single grammatical problem corrected, the awkward writing, the dubious "religious = good, science = bad" theming work, and the shoddy storytelling would still make this book unenjoyable.
In all fairness, I'm not entirely clear on what point in the publication process my copy of D-card represents. I'm going to make my best effort to respect that fact, the fact that I'm not positive that this was the final draft. That being said...
The central concept behind D-card was certainly interesting, which is why I wanted to read it in the first place. The D-cards themselves were certainly the most thought-out aspect of the book, including the consequences of D-cards on other areas of life--education, medicine, social stigmas, etc. The near-future aspect was also pretty well-treated and non-intrusive. I especially liked a very subtle mention that a new Disney princess had been added somewhere between now and 2030. I had very little trouble accepting Gordon's world as a sixteen-year future version of our own.
I can even sense some interesting work going on in the theming. On the big, conceptual level, the themes were accessible to young adults--keeping secrets from loved ones, peer pressure, crises of faith, and the meaning of life, to name a few.
But that wasn't enough to save D-card from itself. Try as I might to remind myself of the positives, there are some things I just can't forgive.
I was stunned by the poor quality of the writing. I never start any book expecting every comma to be in place, but the level of grammatical error in this book, especially for a draft nearing completion, was unacceptable. And I'm not just referring to things like using the incorrect version of "to" (although that happens at least twice). The entire text was fraught with poor writing that I would never expect to come from an English teacher. Eventually this got so out of hand that I started taking notes. Here's a brief except:
"Things go array" instead of "things go awry".
"They use to" instead of "they used to".
"Worse case scenario" instead of "worst case".
"Darting passed her" instead of "darting past".
"She lied down in the snow" instead of "lay down".
Those are just a few examples. Then there are the moments when the writing, while not necessarily grammatically incorrect, was simply bad.
"She didn't feel good. She felt bad."
"[Men were] throwing random things into a fire."
"What difference did her life matter?"
"...a half drank bottle of water..."
Again, this is a brief excerpt of my notes, which I only started taking after about page 80. At this point I had already accepted that I would never be able to fully invest myself in the story or characters, because the intrusively poor writing was far too distracting. Based on the writing alone, I could not in good conscience rate this book above one star.
Unfortunately, I also feel like I need to mention the clumsy handling of the plot and the themes. Like I said, these were both interesting at the conceptual level, but the execution simply wasn't there.
The central theme driving the book was a classic faith-versus-science struggle. However, what Ms. Gordon has chosen to represent the evil "science"
Now. To be fair, the Christian overtones of the book are generally not trumpeted directly. The religion is pretty generalized (very rarely does capital-G "God" even appear). But it doesn't take a lot of reading between the lines to know that what we're really doing here is saying that what's wrong with this world is a lack of faith in a designing creator (we'll call him "God"), and a disappearance of what Ms. Gordon does actually refer to as "Christian beliefs". Observe...
Ryder and Zooey, the characters who represent the "faith" side, are abstinent (paraphrased from text: "My faith would have to be really important to me if I'm passing up the opportunity to sleep with a hottie like you!"). In fact, Zooey likens "dating a religious man" to finding a Disney Prince Charming. Our chaste young loves don't drink or smoke. They do well in school (grad school for Ryder, Northwestern for Zooey). They are generally well-liked. They display selfless kindness and charity. Only cited reason for their superiority? Faith. This elevates them FAR beyond the cesspool of teenage debauchery represented by Aaliya and her peers.
Aaliya (aka "science", aka "trusts in her D-card"): is ALWAYS described as wearing indecent clothing, has casual sex, is called a "whore" and a "slut", drinks to excess, sneaks out her bedroom window, and is keeping a life-threatening secret from her parents. All of this for NO OTHER cited reason than a lack of faith. Case and point: Well done, Zooey. Soul saved.
I'm not mad at the book expressly for touting Christianity. Treating religious content is any author's right. But I'm more than a little insulted by the implications here that "morality = faith". (I also, for the record, HAVE NOT STATED and will not state in this review what my religious beliefs are, one way or the other. So no accusations on that front, please.)
And just to prove that my objections aren't all religious in nature...
We are told that "only one percent of D-cards are ever wrong!" However, if exactly one percent of the current US population had incorrect D-cards, we're still talking about three MILLION people in the US alone. Or, on a more personal level, one out of every hundred people Zooey met would still have an incorrect D-card. The average Facebook user has over 200 friends. So equating a one-percent error rate with perfection is questionable.
...
Again, I recognize that this might or might not be a final draft, but given all that was wrong with it, I really didn't feel I had a choice but to give D-card one star. Even if a new draft came out with every single grammatical problem corrected, the awkward writing, the dubious "religious = good, science = bad" theming work, and the shoddy storytelling would still make this book unenjoyable.
December 23, 2013
*I received a copy of D-Card for free, as a Goodreads First Reads winner. This in no way affects my rating or review of this book.
I give this book a solid 3.0 stars.
Zooey Rivera was eighteen years old when she was to learn what most knew by the age of six--the day of her death...
In the year 2030, business is flourishing for Psych Science, who is able to answer the question of when a life will end. At an early age, individuals are given their D-Cards, which have the exact date, time, and reason of their death. The information found on their D-Card determines what job they could obtain, the education they could receive, and effectively establishes the foundation for their future.
On the day after Zooey Rivera's parents' funeral, she is visited by Ryder Wenthouse, a graduate student who helped Zooey's parents in their mysterious research. Following Ryder Wenthouse's lead, Zooey begins a journey that eill open her eyes to who her parents really were and answer if a person is really more than the number of ther D-Card.
I don't expect to find perfect grammar in a book and to be honest I don't really care if it is or not, but the copy of D-Card I received had so many that I could take notes on them. I'm not sure if my copy is the final edition, hopefully not, but I did expect better considering the author, Jean Gordon, is an English Teacher. Another common occurrence throughout the book was the repeating of words or phrases after they were just spoken. Whether it was done for dramatics or not I'm not sure, but it just didn't work for me. There was also irregular spacing between words throughout the book.
I really enjoyed all the characters in the book. None of them were what they seemed liked at face value. They were all complicated and very unique, blurs of gray rather then simply stark black or white. Though all the characters grew and developed with the story, their core traits stayed present. Their emotions were also portrayed well.
Overall I enjoyed this book and would be willing to read it again.
I give this book a solid 3.0 stars.
Zooey Rivera was eighteen years old when she was to learn what most knew by the age of six--the day of her death...
In the year 2030, business is flourishing for Psych Science, who is able to answer the question of when a life will end. At an early age, individuals are given their D-Cards, which have the exact date, time, and reason of their death. The information found on their D-Card determines what job they could obtain, the education they could receive, and effectively establishes the foundation for their future.
On the day after Zooey Rivera's parents' funeral, she is visited by Ryder Wenthouse, a graduate student who helped Zooey's parents in their mysterious research. Following Ryder Wenthouse's lead, Zooey begins a journey that eill open her eyes to who her parents really were and answer if a person is really more than the number of ther D-Card.
I don't expect to find perfect grammar in a book and to be honest I don't really care if it is or not, but the copy of D-Card I received had so many that I could take notes on them. I'm not sure if my copy is the final edition, hopefully not, but I did expect better considering the author, Jean Gordon, is an English Teacher. Another common occurrence throughout the book was the repeating of words or phrases after they were just spoken. Whether it was done for dramatics or not I'm not sure, but it just didn't work for me. There was also irregular spacing between words throughout the book.
I really enjoyed all the characters in the book. None of them were what they seemed liked at face value. They were all complicated and very unique, blurs of gray rather then simply stark black or white. Though all the characters grew and developed with the story, their core traits stayed present. Their emotions were also portrayed well.
Overall I enjoyed this book and would be willing to read it again.
Read
November 19, 2013One of the best books I have read in a long time. The characters are developed extremely well and you wanted to see what was going to happen next with them. The suspense ran through the whole book.
I read this book in a day because I found it hard to lay it down because I wanted to see what was going to happen in the next pages.
Jean Gordon is a very talented writer looking forward to her next book.
I read this book in a day because I found it hard to lay it down because I wanted to see what was going to happen in the next pages.
Jean Gordon is a very talented writer looking forward to her next book.
November 15, 2013
I liked it. It does exactly what good science fiction should do. It takes an idea and explores it a bit. I'll be keeping an eye out for what the author comes up with next.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews