Diagnose What's Killing Your Personal Essay's Voice

Your essay is technically fine and somehow sounds like anyone. Paste a passage and this names the killers: over-explaining what the reader should feel, hedging that drains your authority, register that lurches about, and word choices that belong to nobody in particular. Specific lines, not vague encouragement. The diagnosis before the rewrite.

Here is a passage from my personal essay: {ESSAY_PASSAGE}.

Critique the voice with specific attention to:
- Over-explanation: places where I tell the reader what to feel instead of trusting the scene
- Hedging language that weakens authority (phrases like 'I think,' 'sort of,' 'maybe')
- Tonal inconsistency: moments where the register shifts awkwardly
- Generic word choices that could belong to anyone rather than to me specifically

For each issue you identify, quote the exact phrase, name the problem, and offer one concrete revision. Then write a 2-sentence summary of what this voice is at its best, so I know what to lean into.