As someone with a similar skillset, I decided to use React for a the frontend for a new project as a learning experience, since I assumed I'm missing out on something by using JS + JSON from a Django view when something asynchronous or interactive was needed.
After a week of wasting time due to needless complexity caused by React (I don't want an SPA), I took React out of the loop and got on with actually developing features that are needed. I don't feel like anything is missing from the final product nor am I missing out on any productivity gains that would be realized after my initial learning curve.
I’m curious to hear what about creating a multi-page application you found to be limited by react. react-router solves this problem quite well. Personally I’ve had a lot of fun using create-react-app to quickly get rolling on side projects without worrying about the painful setup bits and the documentation is pretty good.
Having said that, I don’t know enough about your use case to say that react is a better choice.
After a week of wasting time due to needless complexity caused by React (I don't want an SPA), I took React out of the loop and got on with actually developing features that are needed. I don't feel like anything is missing from the final product nor am I missing out on any productivity gains that would be realized after my initial learning curve.