I have been reading The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks.  The characters (in order of importance) are: Thibault (Logan), Beth, Clayton, Ben, and Nana.  The symbol I would choose for Thibault would be a piano because he plays the piano, but also how well he plays epitomizes how good he is at being a responsible father figure for Ben, Beth's son. For Beth the symbol I would choose would be a tree, the reason being that even though she has a lot of problems in life: her ex-husband is using her kid, and controlling her life by threatening to take him away, she has to care for Nana and the family business, and work as a teacher whilst raising her own kid, she finds a way to be strong and raise Ben as a great kid, and manages to fall in love again. The symbol I would pick for Clayton is a baseball; I would choose a baseball because it shows how perfect he thinks he is because his family has a lot of power in the small town.  I also choose it because Clayton pushes his and Beth's son, Ben, to play baseball and be athletic even though Ben would much rather read or play chess, which shows just how bad of a role model he is, pushing his son to be something he doesn't want to be.  For Ben's symbol I would choose a chess pawn.  I would choose this for Ben because he likes to play chess, and is rather good at it, even though his father would rather he be more athletic.  I specifically choose the pawn because it also represents how bad of a father Clayton is, he uses his son to get what he wants out of everyone in his life: his ex-wife Beth, his dad, his grandfather.  For Nana I would choose a question mark because she is so abstract, her metaphors don't really make sense and she seems to always know the correct answer or the correct decision at any point in time. 

I think the best part about my book is that even though romance seems to be the main topic, several other issues are dealt with in the book including: good vs. bad parenting,  the struggles of surviving a war, and even how hard it is to run a business and keep a steady job and raise a fantastic kid all at once.  This is a good thing because if a book only has one focus or one problem, it can become boring and predictable, with only two or three possibilities of an ending, but with many problems and topic covered, it is interesting and has many possibilities to end the book with.