In this study we examined how good and weak students of literature interact with short literary stories. We focused on differences in the use of cognitive and affective reading activities, and in the extent to which good and weak students adapt their activities to (parts of) the story they are reading. 19 Dutch tenth-grade students from 8 classes participated in the study, of whom 10 were known to be good students of literature and 9 were known as weak literature students. Each student read five literary stories under think aloud conditions. The stories were presented segment by segment on a computer screen. Students' responses were transcribed, segmented and coded. Analysis of variance was applied to the data to test the differences between good and weak students. Results show that good students were more evaluative and emotional in their responses to the stories than were their weaker peers. Moreover, they appeared to be more sensitive to differences between stories than were weak students. Implications for further research and for literature teaching are outlined. (Contains 3 tables and 3 figures.)