Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
When you pick up Insurgent, the first thing you're thinking is probably "Does Veronica Roth like the cover ?" The answer is yes! She likes the pretty green color and the fact that there's a train on it. (Did you see it chugging along down there?) Also, you might be curious to know that the big honking tree is the symbol of Amity. Hmm, for a book with a Tree of Friendship on the cover, it sure has a lot of gunfights inside it.
Insurgent was a huge mess before Veronica Roth revised it, using the magic of Scrivener for Windows. Well, and her badass editing skills. Another handy tool in the revision process: checklists. Lots and lots of checklists.
A lot of Tris's anger toward Erudite stems from Veronica Roth's anger toward a certain unnamed Erudite individual in her own life. Tris's opinion of Erudite begins to change in Insurgent because Roth's opinion of a certain intellectual changed in real life.
Roth consciously decided not to recap much of the plot of Divergent in Insurgent. What, does she think we're marathoning these things like we do with Breaking Bad? It's a good thing we've already Shmooped the first one to get you refreshed.