THE TWITS

Trying to save their seedy amusement park, the Twits tackle a group of young orphans.

Setting the tone with an opening flood of liquid meat from a hot dog factory, this novelization of the 2025 animated movie The Twits spins an original plotline around gross bits and some even grosser characters drawn from Roald Dahl’s 1980 novel, with added elements from his other stories and current events. Mr. and Mrs. Twit are determined to recapture the family of magical, monkeylike Muggle-Wumps they kidnapped from Loompaland to power Twitlandia, the uncommonly dangerous tourist attraction they built in their backyard. They steal a local election with outrageous lies and seize the orphanage where the fugitives are sheltering. But intrepid 11-year-old orphan Beesha—who’s brown-skinned in the film but, like other cast members, minimally described in the book—has other ideas. Various narrow squeaks, punctuated by exploding buttocks, sucking on a toad’s toes, and like delights, culminate in a counter-prank that leaves the noxious neighbors from hell unharmed but at least temporarily at bay. Hay doesn’t succeed in pulling the patchy plot into even a semblance of coherence, but that doesn’t keep him from stuffing it with gross-out moments aplenty. Lessons about the costs of bad behavior may fall flat, though, since the Twits, awful as they are, seem almost admirable for their sheer resilience in the wake of repeated humiliations.

Episodic but sure to delight those who appreciate the ick factor.