Out of Position (Dev and Lee)

By: Kyell Gold

Narrated by: Jeremy Sewell

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Dev is a football player at Forester University, a small liberal arts college where he and his teammates get to strut around and have their pick of the girls on Friday nights. That's as good as it gets - until he meets Lee, a fox with a quick wit and an attractive body.

Problem is, Lee's not a girl. He's a gay fox, an activist who never dreamed he'd fall for a football player. As their attraction deepens into romance, it's hard enough for them to handle each other, let alone their inquisitive friends, family, and co-workers. And if school is bad, the hyper- masculine world of professional sports that awaits Dev after graduation will be a hundred times worse.

Going it alone would make everything easier. If only they could stop fighting long enough to break up.

Kyell Gold's fourth novel is a story of relationships, of finding oneself and learning to live with someone else, set in the contemporary fantasy world that was the setting for his acclaimed novel Waterways: joint Winner of the 2009 Rainbow Award for Best Gay Novel; Winner of the 2009 Ursa Major Award for Best Novel.

©2009 Kyell Gold (P)2013 Kyell Gold

Don't be put off by the cover art

While the editing and narration were slightly off (someone needs to tell the narrator how to pronounce Penelope), this is one of the best gay romance books I've listened to. Characters are subtle and well rounded. The dialog is some of the best I've ever read.

If you are a fan of gay romance, buy this book. I'm not a furry - so my enjoyment of the characters is purely based on the character development and story.

Finished in just 2 days.

Would you listen to Out of Position (Dev and Lee) again? Why?

Probably, its a good read. I was particularly intrigued by the use of language. There was never really a dull moment in the writing. A lot of novels can be long winded and over descriptive. This strikes that happy balance. Not too over descriptive, not too dull.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It sure did have its moments. A lot of anticipation, a shock or two. And a satisfying ending.

Any additional comments?

I would happily recommend this.

Award for the Worst Narrator goes tooo...

By no means I want to be an ass, but after listening about half way through this book, it became the first book ever I've returned purely because of the narrator...

Yeah, no furries for me thank you

OMG, where do I start. First of all, the novelty of this book having animals instead of people wears off fast. Despite the references to paws, fur, tails and muzzles (better not to dwell on how kissing with tongue works with muzzles); it is basically a MM romance, complete with a lot of sex scenes Unfortunately it is not a very good MM romance and the narrator has a really annoying lisp that makes his “s” sound like “th”. In addition, he rushes and mumbles through dialogue in some places to the extent that he runs out of breath by the end. His narration is really distracting. I kept wanting to tell him to “breathe and slow down.” Most of the time he was fine, but then he would ramble through something. Weird.

With that said, at the heart, this book is a romance between a wanna be gay rights activist college student (a fox) that also loves football and a “gay for you” college football player ( a tiger). Not an original concept, but OK. Aside from the narrator’s rushing and mumbling, the basic problem with this book is I really didn’t relate or like the couple. Dev (the tiger) is an in the closet "bi" (I guess) who professes to love Lee which still keeping their relationship in the closet, sometimes literally. Lee (the fox), who dresses in women's clothes to "protect" Dev's reputation, (after "tricking" Dev into sleeping with him, yeah really!!) was annoying in his acceptance of this role and status through most of the book. After a while, I didn’t really care if they got together or not. I’m sure this is just a personal preference, which is why I gave it 3 stars; other people apparently really like this series. But in my opinion, not worth a credit.

The Beginning of Something Great

Would you consider the audio edition of Out of Position (Dev and Lee) to be better than the print version?

The narrator does a decent job of giving the characters their own unique voice characteristics.

What did you like best about this story?

The occasional switch of the perspectives between the two main characters is something I have never seen in a book in this genre before.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Jeremy Sewell?

I believe he has a good voice for audiobooks and as he develops this skill with further books in the future, it will only get better.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It brought up a sense of pride for Dev in his bid to break the mold of the professional sports world and bring it into the modern era in terms of its treatment of players with alternative sexualities.

Any additional comments?

I hope that Kyell Gold will continue to have this trilogy produced in audio format as well as his other books.

Horrendous narration.

Was excited to give this series a go since I really liked Waterways by this author, but I stopped barely an hour into the book because this narrator is terrible. Dozens of mistakes with him obviously mixing up/ tripping over words. Reads entirely too fast& there’s hardly any vocal change between characters; Also hard to tell most of the time who’s talking or what’s being thought vs. actually spoken.

This might be the first audible book I actually return, all because the narrator speaks like a timid 3rd grader asked to read aloud in class.

loved it

this book was a rollercoaster. gets kinda steamy in spots but it was a good kinda steamy.

Horrible

What disappointed you about Out of Position (Dev and Lee)?

It bounces around a lot. One minute your in April, then back in November, then back to August. I hate first person POV when the author continuously changes between POV's it's hard to tell who's talking.

Would you ever listen to anything by Kyell Gold again?

No.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

YES! His voice is creepy, but I could get over that. No, what got me the most was the stuttering. Ever couple of sentences he would miss a word and come up short. It was very distracting. Plus all of his characters sound the same.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Out of Position (Dev and Lee)?

The whole book was a disaster

Great story, terrible narration

I read many of the books in this series before the audio version was released, and I was really looking forward to experiencing the story again. But I didn’t get very far into it before I had to stop listening due to the incredibly low quality of the narration.

The narrator is clearly an amateur, and it seems as if there was little to no editing, producing or directing performed for the audiobook. Some problems that I noticed in the narration:

- Tripping to over certain words, mangling them.
- Speaking the wrong word, then correcting himself.
- Inappropriate inflection and emphases. Rarely does the emotional time of the characters sounds correct.
- Mouth sounds (smacking lips, etc)
- No attempt to give characters unique voices. There’s literary a part where the author calls out a thick southern drawl, and the narrator makes no attempt to produce an appropriate voice for the character.

Most of these could have been fixed with some basic directing and editing. It’s really a shame.

After giving up early in the audio book, I went back after about a year because I REALLY want to experience Dev and Lee’s story again. So far I’m powering through, but it’s hard to focus on the story and characters when the narrator is so distracting. The fact that I’m able to bear through it is a testament to the quality of the writing.

terrible narrator

the narrator is unable to distinguish between individual characters, he can't even pronounce the name Penelope