YMMV / Out of Position

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Lightning Strike. Is he a narcissistic Attention Whore who pretends to act nice but is only after money and fame, or is he really a caring (albeit Innocently Insensitive) person who values his team and Dev as much as everyone else? The end of Uncovered seems to lean towards the former.
• Anvilicious: Lee, at times, will monologue to himself about how society treats homosexuality negatively and openly voice his feelings to the readers. While he does have a point, it starts to get old around the third or fourth book, especially since the series has already made Lee's points very clear by some of the events both he and Dev go through.
• Complete Monster: Argile.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Dev and Lee having sex in Dev's parents' house. With Dev's parents sleeping in the room next to the one he and Lee are staying in.
    • For extra points it's actually his brother's old room and Dev comments that it'd be funny the next time he speaks to his brother to think "Hey, I fucked a guy in your bed."
  • Dev going down on Lee while he's talking to Hal over the phone. The fact that Hal is discussing how he just recently broke up with his new girlfriend makes it even funnier.
• Cry for the Devil: Colin Smith in Blessed from the Tales of the Firebirds anthology. Colin is a grade-A Jerkass, but Blessed shows him to be incredibly repressed and unhappy - and so in denial about his sexuality that he seems genuinely incapable of connecting it to his unhappiness - both in life and in his marriage and his conversations with "Jesus", rather than being expressions of his faith, almost seem like full on dissociation. All in all it's hard not to feel a little sorry for him.
• First Installment Wins: While most fans enjoy all the books in the series, Isolation Play and Divisions are generally considered to be not as good as Out of Position (the former has issues with pacing and Padding, and the latter left several situations regarding Lee unresolved, which annoyed many fans).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The similarities with Conner Mertens' own coming out story were dutifully noted by the author.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Lightning Strike in Uncovered. He's not as narcissistic or annoying, he doesn't steal too much screentime from the other football players like he did in Divisions, and he toned down his attention-seeking behavior to a manageable level.
• The Scrappy:
  • Brian. He's a Jerkass who acts like he's friendly when he really has some secret agenda to harm Lee and/or Dev. His reasons for trying to sabotage Dev's career and his relationship with Lee, although justified at first, become utterly petty as the series progresses. At some point you have to wonder if he's just a Crazy Jealous Guy who despises the fact that Lee no longer hangs out with him anymore and started dating someone like Dev.
  • Lightning Strike, a narcissistic, idiotic, hammy Attention Whore who takes everything way too seriously. Even when he's trying to be nice, he comes across as being a douchebag sometimes. He's even a Scrappy In-Universe; none of the Firebirds can stand being around him.
  • Colin, for being a cliché homophobic Jerk Jock. And for being a hypocritical Armoured Closet Gay who cheats on his wife with Argonne and refuses to admit that he's gay when Dev confronts him about it.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: While Out of Position did receive lots of praise, there was some criticism that the first chunk of the book had pacing issues and that not much in terms of plot really happens. It isn't until around the Time Skip and when Brian gets more involved in trying to ruin Dev's career that the story focuses more on the plot and Character Development.
• Tear Jerker:
  • After Dev finds out about Lee's court case, he and Lee get into a fight again. Only this time, Lee (temporarily) leaves, and Dev doesn't even try to convince him to come back like he did in Isolation Play.
  • Chapter 11 of Uncovered, which is aptly named "Shattered." Whether it's Lee realizing he has to leave in order to help Dev stay focused on the championship, Dev coldly telling Lee "Fine. Stay there." via text message, Lee hiding from Dev in the parking garage, Lee abruptly crying next to Hal when he begins to wonder if Dev will hate him at some point in the future... It's nearly impossible to read the chapter without getting teary-eyed at least once.
• The Woobie: Lee. Throughout the series Lee continues to suffer from various life-changing tragedies of some kind (his parents getting divorced, his constant fights with his ex-best-friend Brian, Vince King's suicide, etc.), and Dev, the one person who could be helping him through these tragedies, constantly becomes more and more obsessed over his football career and neglects Lee, to the point where Lee can't even be himself without the risk of screwing up Dev's career.