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Yellow Barks Spider
At ten years old, Kid is increasingly disturbed by strange spider-infested visions of his next-door neighbour's shed. Pursued by shadowy memories that torment his waking thoughts, Kid falls deeper and deeper into a haunted inner world, retreating from his family and friends. Beneath this overwhelming pressure, the text itself begins to crumble, splintering as the workings of Kid's imagination become animate - and language self-destructs. Emerging from this anguish, Kid surfaces into adulthood as she navigates love, sex, addiction, and self-discovery as a trans woman. But, when a family member falls ill, she is forced to return to her hometown and confront all the old fears she thought she'd left behind.
Yellow Barks Spider is an unforgettable portrait of trauma, isolation, and self-compassion. It is a deeply-felt exhumation of memory, love, and the human spirit, and it announces a bold new voice by a debut author.
Yellow Barks Spider is an unforgettable portrait of trauma, isolation, and self-compassion. It is a deeply-felt exhumation of memory, love, and the human spirit, and it announces a bold new voice by a debut author.
125 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2024
About the author
Harman Burns
1 book10 followersHarman Burns is a Saskatchewan-born trans woman, filmmaker, sound artist and writer. Her practice is informed by folklore, nature, the occult and bodily transfiguration. Yellow Barks Spider is her debut novella. She currently resides on the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver)
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 23, 2026
A prose poem bildungsroman – Burns has a finely tuned eye to the power of words in space, white space and punctuation-pockmarked space and break and breath and breathless repetition, the pattern, the texture of it, words in places reduced away from sense and sounds to their shape, to looping loosely crossing thread, to scratches in the fabric of the world – with some body horror through the haze of long-term disassociation, coming at last in focus with some triumph.
I didn't enjoy this much, per se, in the simple dopamine drip sense. I floated, in the disassociation haze, which is past sense, which precedes sublimity.
| PS: I don't advise reading this if you have any degree of arachnophobia. Unless you want to.
. . .
Here is the future, same as the past:
A whale is a door, a mouth is a door,
Memory of a door is a door.
Shame is a room of locked doors,
A shed that cannot be opened.
I didn't enjoy this much, per se, in the simple dopamine drip sense. I floated, in the disassociation haze, which is past sense, which precedes sublimity.
| PS: I don't advise reading this if you have any degree of arachnophobia. Unless you want to.
October 14, 2024
This was incredibly well-written and chilling! I went into this blind, and I am pleasantly surprised. If you’re looking for a short, unsettling read, I highly recommend this!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early arc!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early arc!
April 17, 2026
I guess the reason that "In the end, it's only you" is the conclusion is because it's true. All of that other stuff, everything else that occured in your life, either matters or it doesn't, only exists as far as it's aconowledged, because it's just you here. The cowspider, that thing below the water's surface, none of them made it here, but you did.
Maybe being raised in fuckin' Canada just *does* this to some people, the adults always dragging you out to interact with THE GREAT OUTDOORS, fishing trips, traumatic experiences by the water... I flipped out at Yellow Barks not because I dislike it, but because I felt like it was needling me about pretty specific experiences and I sometimes wanted it to have *more to say* since it was digging up so much nasty shit. All Yellow Barks has to say is itself, though. If I think about it long enough, Yellow Barks says that shit like that does not have to factor into your existence. You can happily persist in spite of it.
I flipped out and then posted the flipout hoping that it would illustrate Yellow Barks Spider as a tome of big moods, partially because I am bad at expressing myself. Most of the time when you're in young Kid's head it is a deeply unpleasant experience, a disjointed collection of weird uncomfortable memories. Sometimes things that make you think *fuck, how did Kid get into this situation, where is any responsible adult at all*, so you know, the good shit. I yapped a lot about how bad it feels watching Kid talk to her family about grandma's health or whatever after all that, and on some level the book feels like three disconnected stages of life. They're not, obviously, because young-adult Kid pre-transition didn't just pick up a drug habit for the craic, duh. Still, though, after the sex-so-good-you-meld-bodies-with-your-partner-and-transcend-the-mortal-plane, it does feel kind of sudden to be in the boots of fully adult, fully out Kid. My first reaction was definitely "huh", and I mean the dog-man segment earlier in the book is quite one thing, but squinting at the astronaut and cowboy segments didn't illuminate much for me.
But, it's chill. Everything that ever happened and everyone you knew is stuck in this rotting fucking shed, but that's okay. In the end, it's only you, which is true. It's actually pretty affirming, looking back now.
My initial writeup is included below.
--
Yeah, pretty much. Yellow Barks Spider feels hazy and distressing, which I feel is quite accurate.
Had a really ugly realisation whilst reading adult Kid just talking to her parents during the holidays. Thought to myself, how the fuck is this scene happening, after all that shit, how can she just go back and talk to them like they're a normal family, look at what her childhood was like, fragmented and awful and the realisation felt kind of like static electricity, oh. Yeah. This is probably the worst I've felt reading a book in a long time. Serious Weakness is brutal but at least there's catharsis. I just had to sit with all of this. It's wrong, it's unclear, it does not connect and it feels gross, the dissonance that arises from that scene, when Kid is talking to her patents. I hope the pattern is no more, honestly, that you are the pattern breaking. Part five was a lot. And yet:
"Nothing that has ever happened to you, nothing that you have done, will ever go away. It lives here. It all lives here."
Sometimes it's easier to play dead. Sometimes, if you play dead, long enough, you might find that you are afraid of games forever.
Something is wrong in this story (not with its construction, but a deliberate part of it) which doesn't connect, random and disaparate scenes like flipping through channels at midnight. What's the countryside and the town at night and camping trips and stolen alcohol and boats and dogs matter? Why did any of it happen? Why is it? I guess that's the point, though. "And in the end it's only you". And in the end it's only me.
No I do not know what to rate this, it made me feel all kinds of things at different junctures but I don't know what to think of it. Yellow Barks Spider, interacts poorly with book-nosed gay autistic dorks. High risk of unconstrained feelings and deep reflection. I guess my main issue is that "And in the end it's only you" is the conclusion I already came to. What now?
Maybe being raised in fuckin' Canada just *does* this to some people, the adults always dragging you out to interact with THE GREAT OUTDOORS, fishing trips, traumatic experiences by the water... I flipped out at Yellow Barks not because I dislike it, but because I felt like it was needling me about pretty specific experiences and I sometimes wanted it to have *more to say* since it was digging up so much nasty shit. All Yellow Barks has to say is itself, though. If I think about it long enough, Yellow Barks says that shit like that does not have to factor into your existence. You can happily persist in spite of it.
I flipped out and then posted the flipout hoping that it would illustrate Yellow Barks Spider as a tome of big moods, partially because I am bad at expressing myself. Most of the time when you're in young Kid's head it is a deeply unpleasant experience, a disjointed collection of weird uncomfortable memories. Sometimes things that make you think *fuck, how did Kid get into this situation, where is any responsible adult at all*, so you know, the good shit. I yapped a lot about how bad it feels watching Kid talk to her family about grandma's health or whatever after all that, and on some level the book feels like three disconnected stages of life. They're not, obviously, because young-adult Kid pre-transition didn't just pick up a drug habit for the craic, duh. Still, though, after the sex-so-good-you-meld-bodies-with-your-partner-and-transcend-the-mortal-plane, it does feel kind of sudden to be in the boots of fully adult, fully out Kid. My first reaction was definitely "huh", and I mean the dog-man segment earlier in the book is quite one thing, but squinting at the astronaut and cowboy segments didn't illuminate much for me.
But, it's chill. Everything that ever happened and everyone you knew is stuck in this rotting fucking shed, but that's okay. In the end, it's only you, which is true. It's actually pretty affirming, looking back now.
My initial writeup is included below.
--
Yeah, pretty much. Yellow Barks Spider feels hazy and distressing, which I feel is quite accurate.
Had a really ugly realisation whilst reading adult Kid just talking to her parents during the holidays. Thought to myself, how the fuck is this scene happening, after all that shit, how can she just go back and talk to them like they're a normal family, look at what her childhood was like, fragmented and awful and the realisation felt kind of like static electricity, oh. Yeah. This is probably the worst I've felt reading a book in a long time. Serious Weakness is brutal but at least there's catharsis. I just had to sit with all of this. It's wrong, it's unclear, it does not connect and it feels gross, the dissonance that arises from that scene, when Kid is talking to her patents. I hope the pattern is no more, honestly, that you are the pattern breaking. Part five was a lot. And yet:
"Nothing that has ever happened to you, nothing that you have done, will ever go away. It lives here. It all lives here."
Sometimes it's easier to play dead. Sometimes, if you play dead, long enough, you might find that you are afraid of games forever.
Something is wrong in this story (not with its construction, but a deliberate part of it) which doesn't connect, random and disaparate scenes like flipping through channels at midnight. What's the countryside and the town at night and camping trips and stolen alcohol and boats and dogs matter? Why did any of it happen? Why is it? I guess that's the point, though. "And in the end it's only you". And in the end it's only me.
No I do not know what to rate this, it made me feel all kinds of things at different junctures but I don't know what to think of it. Yellow Barks Spider, interacts poorly with book-nosed gay autistic dorks. High risk of unconstrained feelings and deep reflection. I guess my main issue is that "And in the end it's only you" is the conclusion I already came to. What now?
January 28, 2025
Yellow Barks Spider is a refreshing change from the mainstream books that fill shelves these days. This is my first book with a trans woman as the main character and I loved it!
As for what Yellow Barks Spider is about, my takeaway is that it’s the story of one person’s turbulent journey. It starts with a pre-teen boy, Kid, who is struggling with issues that cause him to retreat physically and emotionally from the world. In time he escapes the town where he grew up in agony. He moves to a new city, finds work in a restaurant, and has a roommate in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment. We then skip ahead to after the boy has transitioned into a woman. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Kid must return to her hometown where all her old demons are waiting to welcome her back. It’s an interesting premise for a book, one that Saskatchewan-born Burns successfully pulls off.
As I worked my way through the chapters in this book, the deviation from writing norms threw me off at first. But by the time I was halfway done, I found the unique writing refreshing. For example, for the majority of the first third of Yellow Barks Spider, none of the sentences started with a capital letter. And some of the pages have a more poetic writing style. (Like the page that has four lines on it, each line between two and four words and parentheses book-ending each line.) One full page is the words spiders are inside repeated seventy-five times. Other pages have words starting in random spots. Some chapters have words that are blacked out like you see in government documents in movies. These abnormalities may sound odd but they are effective, adding to the dramatic charm of the story.
One of the aspects of Yellow Barks Spider that I enjoyed the most was the author’s ability to convey the turmoil that Kid was going through. The agony was a tangible character at times, which was cool to experience considering the amount of angst in the book.
I am not a fan of swear words in a book when they serve no purpose. You’ll find quite a few of them in Yellow Barks Spider but they are used with thought and are appropriate. That is a nice departure from carelessly tossed in f-bombs. You’ll also find some graphic sex scenes but you can easily skip over those if eroticism isn’t your thing.
I tremendously enjoyed Yellow Barks Spider and felt like I was losing a friend when I turned the last page. If you are looking for a different type of read that has an uncommon storyline and compelling characters, grab yourself a copy of this fantastic book!
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
As for what Yellow Barks Spider is about, my takeaway is that it’s the story of one person’s turbulent journey. It starts with a pre-teen boy, Kid, who is struggling with issues that cause him to retreat physically and emotionally from the world. In time he escapes the town where he grew up in agony. He moves to a new city, finds work in a restaurant, and has a roommate in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment. We then skip ahead to after the boy has transitioned into a woman. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Kid must return to her hometown where all her old demons are waiting to welcome her back. It’s an interesting premise for a book, one that Saskatchewan-born Burns successfully pulls off.
As I worked my way through the chapters in this book, the deviation from writing norms threw me off at first. But by the time I was halfway done, I found the unique writing refreshing. For example, for the majority of the first third of Yellow Barks Spider, none of the sentences started with a capital letter. And some of the pages have a more poetic writing style. (Like the page that has four lines on it, each line between two and four words and parentheses book-ending each line.) One full page is the words spiders are inside repeated seventy-five times. Other pages have words starting in random spots. Some chapters have words that are blacked out like you see in government documents in movies. These abnormalities may sound odd but they are effective, adding to the dramatic charm of the story.
One of the aspects of Yellow Barks Spider that I enjoyed the most was the author’s ability to convey the turmoil that Kid was going through. The agony was a tangible character at times, which was cool to experience considering the amount of angst in the book.
I am not a fan of swear words in a book when they serve no purpose. You’ll find quite a few of them in Yellow Barks Spider but they are used with thought and are appropriate. That is a nice departure from carelessly tossed in f-bombs. You’ll also find some graphic sex scenes but you can easily skip over those if eroticism isn’t your thing.
I tremendously enjoyed Yellow Barks Spider and felt like I was losing a friend when I turned the last page. If you are looking for a different type of read that has an uncommon storyline and compelling characters, grab yourself a copy of this fantastic book!
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
January 28, 2025
beautiful, dreamy & heartbreaking meditation on childhood sexual abuse & the way trauma shapes us. lovely little book.
February 10, 2025
Yellow Barks Spider was such an interesting read. Thank you to River Street Writes and Radiant Press for getting a copy into my hands.
The story is told in 3 parts, the first part is when our main character Kid is living his childhood/ preteen life. He went through a lot of things, SA, bullying, etc… the writing was interesting because in this section none of the sentences started with a capital letter so it took me awhile to get used to that. And this section was a bit trippy too. Somethings happened that I wasn’t sure actually happens or if Kid was in his own head or having these fever dreams to escape reality.
Then part 2 we have just an adult Kid moving out on his own, getting a job, and then battling a drug addiction. I think it was just to escape life and not knowing what he wanted.
Part three is post transition to female so now all of the pronouns for Kid have changed from he to she which again was an interesting scenario to watch in the writing. And I feel like it got to a happier place where her parents accepted her and she wasn’t doing drugs. So I big turn around throughout the story. It was fascinating to read.
I would recommend this read the everyone.
The story is told in 3 parts, the first part is when our main character Kid is living his childhood/ preteen life. He went through a lot of things, SA, bullying, etc… the writing was interesting because in this section none of the sentences started with a capital letter so it took me awhile to get used to that. And this section was a bit trippy too. Somethings happened that I wasn’t sure actually happens or if Kid was in his own head or having these fever dreams to escape reality.
Then part 2 we have just an adult Kid moving out on his own, getting a job, and then battling a drug addiction. I think it was just to escape life and not knowing what he wanted.
Part three is post transition to female so now all of the pronouns for Kid have changed from he to she which again was an interesting scenario to watch in the writing. And I feel like it got to a happier place where her parents accepted her and she wasn’t doing drugs. So I big turn around throughout the story. It was fascinating to read.
I would recommend this read the everyone.
December 9, 2025
I was really confused most of the time, but I fucked with the confusion
April 16, 2025
holy shit, what a tour-de-force of a debut. raw, experimental, and heartbreaking.
November 4, 2024
"memory of a door is a door. Shame is a room of locked doors, a shed that cannot be opened"
this was certainly strange and the descriptions perfectly encapsulated confused panic spiral in a way where I felt uncomfortable here and there, however, the plot is so thin and I'm not an only vibes girly. I will always appreciate stories that do something funky with the text, but I ended this just overall confused and was bored at a handful of points
this was certainly strange and the descriptions perfectly encapsulated confused panic spiral in a way where I felt uncomfortable here and there, however, the plot is so thin and I'm not an only vibes girly. I will always appreciate stories that do something funky with the text, but I ended this just overall confused and was bored at a handful of points
November 28, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review !
TW: SA, Addiction, Sexual Content
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I don’t understand how this book has such a high rating on Goodreads. I barely understood it because most of the book is just incoherent rambling. The plot is basically nonexistent and even using context clues is confusing. If you gave it over 3 stars, why? I’m just curious as to what you took from this book. What am I missing ?
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FYI: on a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars ~ Nothing at all. Chefs kiss. No notes.
*4 Stars ~ It could use some slight adjustments here and there but pretty solid overall.
*3 Stars ~ Adjustments need to be made and rewriting needs to be done. Good but could be a lot better. I read it once and don’t need to do it again.
*2 Stars ~ This book needs a lot of work. Whether it be rewriting the plot, characters, style or ending. Something or everything needs to be changed.
*1 Star ~ Dumpster fire.
TW: SA, Addiction, Sexual Content
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I don’t understand how this book has such a high rating on Goodreads. I barely understood it because most of the book is just incoherent rambling. The plot is basically nonexistent and even using context clues is confusing. If you gave it over 3 stars, why? I’m just curious as to what you took from this book. What am I missing ?
*
*
FYI: on a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars ~ Nothing at all. Chefs kiss. No notes.
*4 Stars ~ It could use some slight adjustments here and there but pretty solid overall.
*3 Stars ~ Adjustments need to be made and rewriting needs to be done. Good but could be a lot better. I read it once and don’t need to do it again.
*2 Stars ~ This book needs a lot of work. Whether it be rewriting the plot, characters, style or ending. Something or everything needs to be changed.
*1 Star ~ Dumpster fire.
December 30, 2024
i was really excited to start reading this novel but was caught off-guard by the experimental writing style. i'm sure many people would appreciate and enjoy this style of writing as seen from the positive feedback. however, personally for me, i found it the lack of structure and grammar to be quite distracting. it can get very abstract and blur the line between poetry and prose. i had a hard time following the story and often found myself bored because i couldn't keep up, consequently leading to a reading slump. i wish that you could tell that it would be written in this way from the book description and advance praise but alas.
still, this book tells an important story about growing up trans and is so valuable for representation, especially coming from a canadian trans woman. those who like experimental styles of writing might really enjoy this. thank you Harman Burns, Literary Press Group of Canada, and NetGalley for this e-ARC!
still, this book tells an important story about growing up trans and is so valuable for representation, especially coming from a canadian trans woman. those who like experimental styles of writing might really enjoy this. thank you Harman Burns, Literary Press Group of Canada, and NetGalley for this e-ARC!
April 2, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion!
Quick read that resolved happily, thank GOD!!!! I was worried going in (too many "bury your gays" trope in books/shows have scarred me permanently), but honestly I feel like everything wrapped up in the best way it could for the main character! Also: trans author writing trans main character in a spooky, creepy book? Amazing, beautiful, wonderful. Give me 10 million more, please!!
Quick read that resolved happily, thank GOD!!!! I was worried going in (too many "bury your gays" trope in books/shows have scarred me permanently), but honestly I feel like everything wrapped up in the best way it could for the main character! Also: trans author writing trans main character in a spooky, creepy book? Amazing, beautiful, wonderful. Give me 10 million more, please!!
May 1, 2025
This book was so beautiful and moving. Right off the bat, the glimpses into Kid's childhood felt like glimpses into my own youth, which I think Burns achieves through pointed imagery, as well as a focus on little details and moments.
I enjoyed how Burns played with form as well, whether it be punctuation and capitalization to mark certain epochs of Kids' life, or incorporating line breaks and indentation to further illustrate what's going on in Kids' mind and life. Parts of this book read as if they should be sung, which I think is partially due to the form, but is also a product of beautiful writing.
It definitely took awhile for this story to sink in, but I like that about it as well. Yellow Barks Spider addresses a variety of important themes, and it leaves the reader pondering bigger questions and drawing new meaning through reflection. I felt so many emotions while reading this story. At times unsettling, at times heartbreaking, at times hopeful and tender, this book covers a lot in a short amount of pages, and I would definitely recommend it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I enjoyed how Burns played with form as well, whether it be punctuation and capitalization to mark certain epochs of Kids' life, or incorporating line breaks and indentation to further illustrate what's going on in Kids' mind and life. Parts of this book read as if they should be sung, which I think is partially due to the form, but is also a product of beautiful writing.
It definitely took awhile for this story to sink in, but I like that about it as well. Yellow Barks Spider addresses a variety of important themes, and it leaves the reader pondering bigger questions and drawing new meaning through reflection. I felt so many emotions while reading this story. At times unsettling, at times heartbreaking, at times hopeful and tender, this book covers a lot in a short amount of pages, and I would definitely recommend it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews