Abstract This chapter examines literacy narratives that feature reluctant readers. These narratives focus less on literacy development and more on the development of the affective skills that will help the protagonists to work through their reluctance to read. The novels thus treat affects as skills that can be learned, rather than as spontaneous or passive experiences. The phenomenon of the reluctant reader novel speaks to adult anxieties over the citizenship behaviors thought to be connected to literacy. In emphasizing affective skills, these novels also offer reassurance and new ways to think about literacy and citizenship.