Like many of Sparks's novels, The Lucky One is a love story that contains various themes that can speak to its different readers. As I read the novel, it makes me think about destiny and fate: Is it fate or destiny that controls our lives, or are our lives shaped by the choices we make?

Since the novel is titled The Lucky One, before we even begin the novel we must wonder who in the novel is lucky and why they are considered lucky. Is it fate that Logan finds Beth's picture when he is in the Marines in Iraq? What role does fate have in bringing him to North Carolina and to find Beth? In the novel, Sparks writes that Logan "was here because he’d made the decision to search for the woman in the picture, it had nothing to do with destiny or magic” (157). Throughout the book, Logan seems to question choices versus destiny himself. He surmises that everyone has a destiny, but not everyone chooses to follow it; Beth is his destiny.

If you are able to select your own thoughts on themes from the Sparks novel, I would suggest that there is much to be gained from analyzing the theme of the individual's search for meaning through the journey.  I think that this becomes one of the most significant elements of the novel.  Logan struggles to find meaning throughout his being in the narrative.  He is not shown to be someone that is intently focused on the war's aims and does not find much meaning in the military.  He is guided through it by the picture and his meaning resides in it.  Like most protagonists who are defined by both the results of their journeys and the journey itself, Logan becomes defined by the meaning of the picture and what it means in terms of a reflection of his own being.  When he returns, his difficulty in adjusting to life on "the outside" is another example of how he searches for meaning.  His cross country quest to find the source of the picture is yet another example of his search for meaning.  There is a theme of the journey evident here, and the physical exploration of journey is matched by the internal exploration of meaning that is a part of Logan's character throughout the narrative.  I think that exploring this idea of what it means to search for meaning and how the quest is a part of this becomes a relevant theme out of Sparks' novel.