Celeste T. Parker

Chop Shop Celeste T. Parker

Go into any checkout line, look on the cover of the women's magazines, and you are guaranteed to find the subject of "beauty;" it's not so distant relative "weight loss;" or its kissing cousin "aging." In fact, you don't even have to leave home, but need only turn on the TV for a dose of "reality." We are raising a generation of desperate wives: desperate to be considered beautiful, desperate to look thin, desperate to stay young, desperate to be happy, desperate to be loved. Our greatest heartbreak quite often is not at the hands of men, but from stepping on the toes of other women, including ourselves. Enter Lovely Azur (pronounced "as-you-are"), who after a rough day, runs into the beauty salon and into the arms of her mother, True. She receives an afterschool lesson that goes beyond goals of glamour and delves deeper than dyed roots. Chop Shop cuts down fashion fallacies and urges girls to stand tall and firm like palm trees, prepared to weather life's storms.