It is this pattern of self-inflicted frustration that gives The Little Hotel its coherence

Time magazine reviews The Little Hotel.

The reviewer writes:

It is this pattern of self-inflicted frustration that gives The Little Hotel its coherence and links to earlier Stead novels like The House of All Nations (1938) ... and The Man Who Loved Children (1940), a chronicle of domestic agony that Clifton Fadiman once described as "Little Women rewritten by a demon."

Women are cast in a very unflattering light

The ANZ LitLovers blog reviews The Little Hotel.

The blogger writes:

Women are cast in a very unflattering light: dependant, inane, trivial and bitchy. Mrs Bonnard wants a friend, but there are none to be had.

Stead is not a novelist of incident but of character

The Victorian Advocate reviews The Little Hotel.

The reviewer writes:

There is little action in the novel, and what there is is minor. Miss Stead is not a novelist of incident but of character.

She manages to make a Marxist perspective seem like an asset to realism

The Village Voice reviews The Little Hotel.

The reviewer writes:

In addition, she manages to make a Marxist perspective seem like an asset to realism rather than an embarrassing inconsistency.

Reprehensible characters, sick, neurotic, or insane, Stead had a special gift for

A poster at the World Literature Forum reviews The Little Hotel.

The poster writes:

In a letter Stead once complained that she couldn't write "positive" characters. It was not her talent. Aside from the hotel owner no one here comes off as very pleasant, and even she is less a saint than a practical businesswomen. Reprehensible characters, sick, neurotic, or insane, Stead had a special gift for. The joy of The Little Hotel lies in her little portraits.

This is a subtle novel, a term rarely applied to Stead

Judith Kegan Gardiner argues that The Little Hotel is "underappreciated" in her essay, "Christina Stead and the Synecdochic Scam: The Little Hotel." This is a pdf file.

She writes:

Unusually for Stead, in The Little Hotel we hear less of her characters’ speeches than we might like. The characters and their pasts are gradually revealed, with much left open to our imaginations. This is a subtle novel, a term rarely applied to Stead.

Madame Bonnard to some extent sits above it all

The Pykk blog glances at the first lines of The Little Hotel.

The blogger writes:

Madame Bonnard to some extent sits above it all, or at the centre.