Hello Readers!
Continuing on with my Tome Topple co-host interview series, today I’ll be featuring Adri from perpetual pages on YouTube! If this is the first interview you’re reading, I chatted with Sam from Will Read For Booze already and that post can be found here! That’s enough of an intro, let’s jump in and start chatting with Adri!
Mr Geek: Hi Adri, I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. To kick things off, why don’t you introduce yourself to my readers. Tell me a little about yourself – what do you like to do outside of reading? Do you have any fun hobbies? What’s your day job?
Adri from perpetualpages: First off, thank you so much for having me on the blog! For those who don’t know me, I am a queer, trans nonbinary, Mexican-American writer, book reviewer, and YouTuber. I run a BookTube channel called perpetualpages, where I share reviews for books I’m reading, recommendations, book tags, and lots of other fun book-related content! As a reader, my taste is highly eclectic. I read across all genres, age demographics, and mediums. I put a particular focus on reading works from marginalized authors, with a special emphasis on queer lit just because that’s where my experience aligns. Every one of my new uploads comes fully captioned and I include content warnings for every book I review, because I believe access to information is power.
Outside of reading, I love to play video games, take photos, watch movies/tv shows with my family and friends, color, go on long walks, and of course write! I have a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing, and I try to balance my own creative projects—poetry, short stories, fiction manuscripts—with my content creation. For work, I’ve dabbled in a lot of different industries. I’ve done some freelance content creation and writing, I’ve worked in the field of education as a tutor and teaching assistant, and most recently I’ve started working in the postal service industry! I kind of bounce around wherever I’m needed, but I think that just demonstrates a strong range of professional abilities, and I’m super proud of all I’ve done so far.
Mr Geek: I love that your degree in Creative Writing aligns so perfectly with your YouTube channel, current projects and all of the other elements in your life that you mentions. Very cool! Since we’re talking about YouTube, how long have you been a BookTuber? I love the name perpetualpages, what inspired that? How long have you been co-hosting Tome Topple?
Adri from perpetualpages: I started my BookTube channel in late 2013. So when November hits later this year I will have officially been making videos for nine years! It’s kind of surreal to quantify my experience in that way, but I suppose the numbers don’t lie.
I got to the name perpetualpages because I started BookTubing in the early days when alliteration was very much The Thing To Do. After toying around with a lot of different book-related terms, I landed on “pages,” because I felt it was a universal part of the reading experience. Whether you listen to audiobooks, read e-books, or read physical books, the “experience” of reading is often quantified by the page count, and you make progress by working your way through those pages, however they may be presented to you. With that decided, I just needed to find another “p” word and “perpetual” struck something in me because I think it alludes to a feeling of permanence and legacy. So all together, my hope was that “perpetualpages” would signify how the stories that truly matter to us will always stay with us. What’s more, I think it ties into my “branding,” so to speak, because I am very intentional with what I read and how I read, and my mission statement as a content creator and reviewer has always been to help other people connect with the stories they need the most, the stories that will always stay in their hearts.
As far as Tome Topple, I am fortunate enough to say that I have been a co-host since the very first round! Sam reached out to a few different people to help her get this read-a-thon off the ground, and I had such a good time with it that I decided to make myself available any time it rolled around again! I always have so much fun interacting with readers, hosting reading sprints, and of course spending some dedicated time with those bigger books, so it always works out for the best.
Mr Geek: I had no idea that I was speaking with one of the original co-hosts of Tome Topple! That’s awesome that you have been around from the very beginning. It’s hard to believe that is is already the 4th round that I’ve helped co-host, and I’m obviously loving it! Speaking of things you love, if you could only read one genre for the rest of your life, what would you pick and why?
Adri from perpetualpages: As a lover of almost every genre that exists, this question is so painful! But I would probably have to say Fantasy. I think Fantasy itches that part of my brain that longs for a sense of wonder and imagination, and because it isn’t tied down to real-world constraints or logic, the concepts can really challenge a reader’s mind and provide limitless possibilities. Plus, Fantasy also comes with a lot of subgenres that would make me feel like I’m not missing out too much. I could still get those contemporary settings in contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy, I could still enjoy the richness of intimate relationships in fantasy-romance, and the fantasy genre covers everything from children’s books to adult books! The same could be said for many other genres, but as a life-long lover of Fantasy, I think I’d have to stick with it for good.
Mr Geek: I completely agree with you. When I chatted with Sam (2), she also picked Fantasy. There is just something about escaping into a great Fantasy book that I love. You previously mentioned that you’re a videogame player, as am I, and I also love a good Fantasy game. I always choose to be the magic user when I can! Shifting gears a bit, let’s talk about some of favorite, and least favorite, books from 2021!
Adri from perpetualpages: Not gonna lie, I have to go back and reference my bookish stats for this one! As a Libra, having to choose one definitive favorite is my worst nightmare, but I’m going to cheat a little bit and say it’s probably a tie between Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa and The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon. Though they’re very different from each other, both stories are incredibly written and reading them brought me a deep sense of catharsis and recognition that I haven’t experienced before. I’m definitely anticipating both Jonny and H.E.’s next books!
I don’t love “putting books down,” because enjoyment of the arts is so incredibly subjective, and what’s a “bad book” for me could absolutely work on every level for someone else. It’s so often a matter of taste and reading experience that’s hard to definitively pinpoint. But just based on ratings alone, one of my lowest rated books of 2021 was Well Played by Jen DeLuca, which I think paled in comparison to the first book in the trilogy.
Mr Geek: I’ve never read either of your favorites, so you just made my TBR a little bit longer! I also don’t usually like hating on books, there is only one book out there that I despise but we can save that for another day! Since our time together is winding down, tell me about a few of your favorite books from past rounds of Tome Topple!
Adri from perpetualpages: Luckily, I can say that I’ve picked some real winners for these past rounds of Tome Topple! I’ve read everything from The Secret History to Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky and almost everything you can imagine in-between. Some real standout tomes for me have been Jade City, which set me on a path of utter devastation; Braiding Sweetgrass, which turned out to be one of the most personal and memorable pieces of nonfiction I’ve ever read; Priory of the Orange Tree, which I finished in a week out of sheer force of will; the entire Daevabad trilogy, which I listened to on audio over three different rounds; and Empire of Sand, which turned out to be one of my favorite books of 2021. I’ve had so many memorable reading experiences throughout my years of co-hosting Tome Topple, and I look forward to making many more memories!
Mr Geek: I don’t know Adri, I might have to ban you from future interviews haha – I added 5 new books to my TBR and bumped Priory of the Orange Tree, Jade City and the Daevabad trilogy to the top of the list! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me! Hopefully we can do this again for a future round!
And that concludes my interview with Adri from perpetualpages. If you couldn’t tell from our conversation, Adri is EXTREMELY good at giving book recommendations and their channel is just overflowing with that type of content! Be sure to check them out over on YouTube! Keep an eye on my blog, Twitter (@ItsMrGeekToYou) and the Tome Topple Twitter Account (@Tome_Topple) for my next co-host interview! Keep toppling those tomes!
Until We Meet Again,
Mr Geek
Treat Yo Shelf By Mr Geek 