Learning general English at the elementary to high school levels in the national curriculum provides opportunities for students to broaden their horizons regarding social relations, culture, and job opportunities available globally. Based on Kepmendiknas No. 23 of 2006 concerning Graduation Standards, in general the aim of learning English in Indonesia is for students to be able to demonstrate proficiency in English in listening, reading, writing and speaking. One of the most important skills students must develop to be successful in school is reading. Despite the various educational programs that have been designed to help students improve their reading skills, many students still find it difficult to complete their studies. Then what do students use to overcome difficulties in reading texts? they need to use strategies to solve their reading difficulties. In reading activities at school, several texts are used in the learning process, one of which is narrative text. It’s commonly used in high school to introduce the reader to a story that happened in the past. This study refers to the process of how students interpret their difficulties and their strategies in reading comprehension through questionnaires and interviews. Where in this study the researchers scaled the participants from the high school level. In conducting this research, researchers used descriptive qualitative research because this research focuses on analyzing or interpreting written material in its context. The subject of this study consisted of 30 students who were in their third semester in a science class of MAN 2 Banyuwangi. There were two instruments used in this study. There were a set of a questionnaire and an interview sheet. The result of this study showed that the students found difficult to understand the narrative text and use various strategies to solve it. The difficulties that they faced were motivation, background knowledge, and language knowledge, while the strategies often used by students were the top-down strategy and then the bottom-up strategy. Lack of motivation to read causes students to have difficulty and cannot achieve the goal of reading comprehension. Background knowledge is a condition in which readers discover differences between their prior knowledge and what the author intended in the text. While the inability of readers to understand a phrase, the meaning of a word and the use of some foreign phrases contribute to the difficulty of language knowledge. Top-down strategy include inserts information into the text before using their own knowledge or insight to understand the text. Bottom-up strategy included reading slowly and attentively to ensure that they understood what they were reading, using reference materials (such as a dictionary) to aid in their comprehension, reading closely in all words and sentences, and translating English into their native language.  Keywords: Students’ Difficulties, Students’ Strategies, Narrative Text.