"...ett sånt mysterium som man blir lämnad med."

Sammanfattning: Reading is considered to be one of the main factors for success throughout the compulsory education and into the years in upper secondary school, and is often connected with instrumental values, such as better grades and higher level of empathy. However, good readers are seldom drawn to books as means to improve their grades, but enjoy reading in its own right. The curriculum for for the upper secondary education in Swedish on the other hand stipulates that students should learn to analyse literature – i.e. learn how to do a reading rather than develop as readers.This study looks at two groups of upper secondary school students discussing two different young-adult novels, and analyses the recordings from a reader-response perspective. As readers they focus mainly on the plot, and their knowledge of story line and genre seems to draw heavily from film, but they also come to the text with different expectations and experiences, which influence their reading. An initial resistance for one reader could be the same factor making the book too trivial for another. Possible implications for teachers are that consideration for the aim of the reading should be made when choosing books for students, as it might be counterproductive to expect inexperienced readers to perform literary analysis if the goal is to develop reading.