This qualitative inquiry explored the personal reading interests of 42 10th-grade students as they selected and began reading a novel. The study's goal was to inform those interested in supporting students' reading interests of what students from one rural school could and could not verbalize about their personal reading interests. The participants a) participated in two online focus group meetings, b) read the first 10 pages of their selected novels and highlighted the parts that interested them, and c) completed an online questionnaire based upon readers' advisory interviews. The study's findings include what interested the participants as they selected novels, what did and did not interest them as they read, what they could or could not verbalize about their personal reading interests, and when they could verbalize those interests. It concludes with a theoretical exploration of what may help the participants to express more of those interests. According to Vygotskian theory, without words, thoughts are both undirected and unverbalized. The participants highlighted figures of speech that were used in their novel, but they did not verbalize that interest with a signifying word. Because those highlighted words were interesting to the participants, the highlighting indicated a probable interest in figures of speech which was unverbalized. When the participants experienced words that signified subordinate concepts of reading interests in a system of generalities that included the novels that the participants found personally interesting, the participants were more likely to verbalize their personal reading interests with those signifying words. This may indicate that these participants would verbalize the reading interests more readily in a context that included both novels that were interesting to them and words that signified their personal reading interests. It is important to experience a variety of words that signify the subordinate concepts of reading interests so that individuals have the verbalization tools to identify what interests them. With the words to express personal reading interests, individuals can communicate their interests with the rest of the world and share in the conversations that will allow them to find the reading material they seek. This understanding is useful to all who would encourage reading. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]