Variation

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical and emotional abuse and illness.

Allie is a protagonist in the novel and one of the point-of-view characters. She is 16 years old in the novel’s flashbacks and 27 throughout most of the novel. In the present timeline, she is a professional ballet dancer for the Metropolitan Ballet Company, one of the biggest ballet companies in the country. Allie’s family name is central to her identity, as her mother, Sophie, was one of the best ballet dancers in the world when she was younger. Like Allie, her three sisters are pressured into the world of ballet, with all four Rousseau girls spending their childhoods working with the best ballet coaches and in the best studios. 

Allie is hardworking and motivated when it comes to ballet, but she also suffers through The Pressures of Athletic Excellence, with training for hours each day, dancers below her constantly fighting for her spot, and the expectations of her mother. One primary motivation for her character is the death of her older sister Lina 11 years before the events of the novel. Lina’s death caused Allie to become the focus of her mother’s dreams for ballet success, as well as causing Allie to feel the need to pursue ballet with the company out of guilt.