There's a lot of mickey taking of Dan Brown's work but I found them (up until The Last Symbol) easy-osy reads in between more serious novels. They were something to relax with in the form of boy's own adventure stories from my youth.
Now even if his books aren't anywhere near high culture in a literary sense I do think that if they get non-readers to start reading books then that's a good thing. They can be gateway novels to much better writing. See also JK Rowling, Joseph Finder and Lee Child. Apropos Lee Child, my dad hadn't read much in the way of fiction for many years and then in his 70's somehow bumped into the Jack Reacher novels and he ploughed through them all on his iPad in his spare moments. That's no bad thing.
Now even if his books aren't anywhere near high culture in a literary sense I do think that if they get non-readers to start reading books then that's a good thing. They can be gateway novels to much better writing. See also JK Rowling, Joseph Finder and Lee Child. Apropos Lee Child, my dad hadn't read much in the way of fiction for many years and then in his 70's somehow bumped into the Jack Reacher novels and he ploughed through them all on his iPad in his spare moments. That's no bad thing.