My girlfriend in 6th form was really into them, and wanted me to read them. As a 17-year-old male, I definitely wasn't the target audience, but they were ok. The romance was there, but it felt like that characters weren't purely acting out of romantic interest, which is a trend that seems to happen in a lot of these sorts of books. There were probably more clichés than I noticed at that age, but I did think the world was interesting, and the actual "Hunger Games" (which, to my disappointment, took a back seat in Book 3) were really interesting. I'm not planning a re-read, but I'd say it's one of the better YA novels I've come across, especially taking into account I was not the target audience for them.

We've been to the moon. We've been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (well, James Cameron has). We've pretty much mapped almost the entire landmass of the earth with Google Maps. And yet we've never seen a grub that's a foot long, and there's a bunch of them out there. I love the earth.

I am a big time fan of Stephen King, but I agree with everything you've said here. I think the only thing that's worth raising is there really aren't that many fans trying to justify it (at least not on his subreddit), a lot of people who love his books have issues with this too.