Good point. Would you say that Green approaches the same kind of thing in 'Looking for Alaska' when The Colonel reminds Miles that he knew her for such a short time, while The Colonel was her friend for years? Maybe he just doesn't expand on that enough to correct the typical male gazeness of the manic pixie dream girl book?

I was thinking about this last night, how although the girls in 'The Virgin Suicides' are set up as unknowable.mysterious ladies the boys seek to know them through the tiny fragments they have. They want to udnerstand them properly after they disappear Maybe some of the great manic pixie dream girl books have manic pixie dream girls who are kind of super mysterious, but also guys who are try to know them even if they don't succeed?