Reviews - Demian | The StoryGraph

2.65k reviews for:

Demian

Hermann Hesse

4.05 AVERAGE

bookishaddictions's review against another edition

2.0

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A friend loaned me her copy, so I decided to give Demian a go. Let me start by saying that I’ve read Hesse’s Siddhartha and found it interesting…. This one, not so much. I was completely underwhelmed by Demian, especially after seeing so many positive reviews online. I know this book is meant to be philosophical, but I just felt so disengaged the entire time. I found that the lack of real events surrounding the character’s self-discovery journey made the whole story boring; I don’t like reading 100+ pages of what’s essentially a diary when the person’s life really isn’t that interesting in the first place. It’s possible that this book is great and just wasn’t for me, but I’m not going to be actively recommending this story to anyone 🤷🏼‍♀️

lil_cosy_lauren's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

because_im_hailey's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

vale44's review against another edition

3.0

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

jessiejessj's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

From a completely subjective point of view, I was not *as* big of a fan of this book as I thought I might have been. Was the book extremely well written? Yes, absolutely. Did I understand what was happening for large portions of the book? No, no I did not. Parts of this book absolutely went above my head, and I struggled trying to grasp the implied meaning of the story, and coupled with the older writing style from the 1920s, found myself lost. The ending especially just took such an aggressive right turn I felt like the book just ended and I suddenly had a million more questions than I did 25 pages earlier before it went off the tracks. I did enjoy the read certainly, but I don’t think this is a book that I would read again.