Overview:

Meant to Be : This spiritual coming-of-age novel opens with thirteen-year-old Patience Jan Campbell offering her view of life in a blue-collar suburb of Chicago. But when Jan loses her voice, the ability to clearly articulate her dreams, she calls for her grandmother, Hannah - who died before Jan was born - in prayer. Hannah comes, and, through her eyes, we follow Jan through her early twenties as she moves to the city, becomes college-educated, and begins a career. A reflective father, a misunderstood mother, a sage aunt, and two pivotal lovers contribute to Jan's journey to womanhood, and the emotional bridges they find, build, or destroy encircle Jan's life. In a novel that calls to mind the work of Zora Neale Hurston and Ntozake Shange, author Rita Coburn Whack has written a story about a young woman's spiritual awakening that leads her to maturity and self-fulfillment.