Many English novels contain idiomatic expressions and fiction novel is one of them. Based on the researcher’s experience, some students at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta found difficulty in understanding idiomatic expressions in novel. This research aims to find out the difficulties faced by English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta students in understanding idiomatic expressions in English novel and the strategies used in understanding idiomatic expressions in English novel. To answer the two-research questions, the research used qualitative research method by using descriptive analysis as the research design. Semi structured interviews was done to gather the data. The participants were four students at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta batch 2014. There were four findings of difficulties that students faced in understanding idiomatic expressions in English novel. The findings were: students find difficulties in identifying idioms; students find difficulties in finding the most equivalent word in L1; students find difficulties in understanding the purposes and the meaning of idioms, and students find difficulties in translating idioms. There were six findings of the strategies that students used in understanding idiomatic expressions in English novel. The strategies were reading the sentence repeatedly, having logical understanding, paraphrasing, looking for the similar form and meaning, looking for the similar meaning but dissimilar form, and correlating the idiom into the actual context.