I have a mixed relationship with these books. I worked as a literacy tutor for adults for a while and had a string of failures for my first three months. The first time I managed to achieve something was with a functionally illiterate student who was obsessed with the Hunger Games and wanted to read all of them, so that's what we did. She actually got up to about a 9th grade reading level in five months, which is really impressive.

So it was useful for something at least. A few times I thought about sneaking in some theory when she'd ask about the definition of words like revolution or when she'd have difficulty keeping track of the characters' motivations, but I wussed out from ethical concerns. I didn't mention anything directly, but she did occasionally make organic comparisons between the tyranny of the Capitol city and large American corporations.

So I have first hand experience it can at least have some kind of surface level aesthetic value for some people.