First and foremost, the benefits of reading fiction helps us to understand the human condition; suffering, happiness, love, and hate.
Each novel that you read deals with a character living a chunk of life from a specific point of view. So, it might deal with beliefs, or learning, or a misunderstanding that needs a story experience to reveal to the character a better way of living.
Well written fiction gives you an opportunity to exercise your critical thinking about the different paths of life. A romantic novel may fool you into believing that love is a gift from the gods, or that it just happens to us – and it always comes with tinsel and pretty wrapping, that the hero or heroin must prove themselves before they are worthy of love.