Great Expectations Within Popular Fiction and the Bestseller Culture

The bestseller culture has generated countless trends, spin-offs, sequels and film adaptations of recently published books. The bestseller status of a book can cause readers to form expectations based on the popularity and not the quality of the book. This study aims to reveal the reasoning and motivation behind the reader's expectations, how literature influences the reader and how the reader in turn influences new waves of literature. As to illustrate these attributes fully, particular consideration will be given to reader-response theory and the study of narratology. This dissertation applies several elements to a case study on Meg Cabot's bestselling young adult series 'Airhead'. While there are few ways in which one can predict a bestseller, an understanding of the writing and publishing processes points to how the reader's expectations are formed, and more importantly, how they are met.