SYMBOLISM
In my book the symbolism shown is they are reading Little Woman and every one has a character from Little Woman ( Jo, Beth, Amy, Meg ). Some characters in my book had the same problems in then book Little Woman too. So, they were both symbols together.
ALLEGORY
In my book the allegory is the Fab 4 ( Meg, Becca, Amy, Jessica ) we're bullying every one in the book club and acting popular when they really weren't. So the hidden meaning was not to bully or be mean to innocent people. Cause after they got bullied Megan ditched the Fab 4 cause she saw that they were hurting peoples feeling and became the book club's friends.