This literary reception research is based upon interviews with three girls and three boys in a Swedish upper secondary school. The purpose of this research is two-folded, the main aim is to focus and to increase the comprehension of how these six students understand and respond to a specific text. The second aim, is to examine whether literary reception is conditioned by the matter of gender. Former research in the field of reading and reader response, are discussed in order to explain different ways of reading and ways of taking part of a text. My results of the research show that the students may understand and respond to the text differently; in fact a student’s social intercourse, earlier reading habits, gender and social and cultural context seem to determine how he or she will experience the text. The research furthermore highlights that literary reception is a matter of gender, as girls and boys seem to respond to the text differently.