I was wondering about your feelings about the THG books themselves as opposed to the fandom. I liked the first book, but really didn't like the last two, especially the third. Enough so that it soured me on the whole thing for a while. Eventually I got pulled back in via some lateral moves by fic authors, but I think I look at it differently than a lot of people, because I really like the characters but am very ambivalent about the actual plot events.
Sorry for taking so long to respond to this!
I genuinely liked the first two books (Catching Fire gets a loooooot of bonus points for Finnick, plus the Arena is really interesting and you get Katniss/Peeta and BED SHARING which is like, everything to me, AND you get Madge and Gale helping them prepare which is just such a great what if scenario for gadge fic writers), but I did feel like Mockingjay went kind of off the rails– like, it felt as though Suzanne Collins had an editor leaning over her shoulder going “are you done yet? How about now? Now? You have a deadline, remember?” so a lot of things that we should have seen just…happened off screen, while Katniss was catatonic/unconscious. I do appreciate where Collins was going with Mockingjay, which is that war is not glorious and fast-paced and exciting, but instead mind-numbing and leaves broken people in its wake. But I don’t think that all totally landed, and things like Madge dying off-screen with hardly a mention make it feel more rushed than deliberate.
However, what almost singlehandedly saves Mockingjay for me is the ending, where Katniss talks about things getting better, but not completely. I think that message of “you can heal but your scars will remain and that does not make you weak” is really important, as is the message that people with those scars can still be happy.
But yeah, I am very ambivalent about Mockingjay as a whole and totally get the “like the characters more than the plot” angle.
