Some theories suggest that literary fction may enhance social-cognitive abilities (i.e., empathy and mentalizing) to a greater extent than popular fction. The superiority of literary fction may depend on readers’ experience of transportation and identifcation, as well as their familiarity with the language of the story. We conducted an online experiment with 744 adult participants who read a literary or a popular fction short story matched for topic in either their native or second language. After reading, participants’ evaluation of the story (literary quality, stimulation of refection, infuence on their life and attitudes), narrative engagement, transportation and identifcation, and their self-reported empathy and mentalizing performance were assessed. The language of the stories had no signifcant effects on readers’ narrative experience, mentalizing performance or empathy ratings. Contrary to our assumptions, the popular fction story received higher ratings across variables assessing infuence on attitudes and (self-)refection than the literary fction story, and no differential effects of literary vs. popular fction emerged for self-reported empathy or mentalizing performance. Moderator analyses indicated that empathy ratings depended on how strongly the participants felt transported into the story for only the popular but not the literary short story. Additionally, lower cumulative reading exposure was associated with weaker mentalizing performance particularly after reading literary fction, but not popular fction. These fndings underline the need for a more complex theoretical framework that goes beyond the distinction of literary vs. popular fction and the need to investigate specifc aspects of literariness and their effects on story perception and social-cognitive skills.