How can what we bring into a novel affect the way we interpret the work?

Story's are meant to take us to a time and place to make us imagine and feel what the writer is trying to show us our make us feel. Writers have a talent for making things up or using there life as a story as one can sometimes relate to it and make you feel a certain way. I believe that is was makes a novel so special because people are suppose to feel and understand to grasp the full emotion of whats being read.