The beginning of Book Two of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton starts out with what Selden has been doing since we last left off. I like how the books are separated. I think the author meant to put it that way so it shows the time lapse of about two months. Selden had been doing work and Lily was on a two-month cruise to the Mediterranean.

 Reading, I was thinking to myself, “okay, they are going to have to say something about Lily here sooner or later…” I kept reading and reading and didn’t see anything about her. Finally, I figured out this was recapping Selden’s thoughts and it hadn’t gotten to Lily yet. The first and second chapters of Book Two are the same timeline but different sides… I think. That’s what I believe is going on here.

 Something that caught me off guard was when Seldon said, “’What the deuce am I running away from?’’ (Wharton 153). I liked that it finally dawned on him that he was running away from something that I want and I feel like everyone else is rooting for.