many women who are comfortable about watching soap operas are con-temptuous about romance novels. Themes of romance may be anathemaas literature while they occupy an important role in organizing the life.The reader is always constructing and reconstructing, affirming andreaffirming cultural discourses as she responds to the text. Although itmight appear that reading is a solitary activity, it is not. The reader is alwaysengaged in internal dialogue with the culture, asking questions like “Whatdoes it mean for me to be reading this book? What does this readershipreveal about me? How do I understand it?” These questions reflect andinterrogate cultural stances. Thus, the reader carries multiple ideas thatare brought into play in the literary encounter.In addition to a broad cultural influence, many readers actively seekthe ideas of others, making the experience communal. They share theirexperiences by joining private book groups, attending book groups or-ganized by bookstores and libraries, participating in on-line chat rooms,reading book reviews and newsletters, even influencing what gets written.Therefore, what is commonly assumed to be a private experience has manyovert and covert communal properties (see Long, 1992; and Griffin, 1999for further discussion of this point). My study of the responses of studentsreading romance novels explores this phenomenon by examining specificways in which these responses evolve.WHAT ARE ROMANCE NOVELS AND WHOREADS THEM?Romance novels provide fertile ground for this investigation. “Nogenre is more popular and less respected than the romance novel”(Donahue, 2002 p. 10). Such wide readership means that romance novelshave entered the public discourse to such an extent that both readersand non-readers have formed opinions about them. Although there arenumerous types of romances, there are certain conventions that definethe genre. In the briefest description, they are relationship-driven plotswith a happily-ever-after ending. “In a typical scenario, a strong-willedwoman meets an equally strong-willed older man and both feel incredibleantipathy—and attraction toward each other. After a series of misun-derstandings, he eventually loses control of his passions and physicallyassaults her, but the narrative operates in such a way that this assaultappears as evidence of the hero’s uncontrollable love of and attractionto the heroine. Once she recognizes this in him (and he recognizes it inhimself) they call a truce and declare their true—loving—feelings for oneanother” (Wardrop, 1995, p. 461).