OZZY OSBOURNE – Last Rites

RELEASE YEAR: 2025
BAND URL: https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/ozzy-osbourne/last-rites/9781408724057/

Last Rites by the sadly missed and inimitable Ozzy Osbourne is nothing short of a triumph in every sense of the word. Published just a few months after his unforgettable performance at the historic Back to the Beginning event in Birmingham – the place where he and his mates in Black Sabbath grew up and formed the group – and subsequent (and untimely) passing, this literary gem is as moving, funny, heart-warming, shocking, and all-out engrossing as they come.  

While primarily focusing on the past seven years of his life, which is to say from the No More Tours II tour in 2018 up until his death in 2025, his mind luckily often wanders, and we end up going back and forth in time constantly. From his childhood years and upbringing in a bleak post-war Aston in the Midlands to his rise to fame with Sabbath and further on to the debauchery and madness of the eighties and beyond when he was flying solo, every word simply leaps off the page and transports the readers elsewhere. Evocative is unarguably an apt way of summing the oftentimes hilarious and occasionally unsettling narrative up, and the wit, wisdom, and charming sense of sarcasm that none other than Ozzy could possess course through the whole written piece, thereby making it impossible to put the book down. It is unflinchingly honest and perfectly candid from beginning to end but also hauntingly reflective, melancholy, and thoughtful. The living hell that he went through while desperately trying to overcome all the obstacles that kept him from returning to his beloved stage is told in brilliant and penetrating detail, and it dives deep into the grim reality of how the last six years of his life were plagued by failing health.  

Last Rites is much more than merely an unlikely story of a working-class lad who became a rock god; it is also a poignant reminder that all of us now inhabit a world without the iconic singer and artist in it, which is undoubtedly a gut-wrenching fact that many of us are still struggling to accept. More than anything though, it tells us about a father, husband, friend, and musician who was deeply loved and cherished not only by those closest but also a worldwide legion of fans and devotees, and whose creative output will outlast us all and continue to inspire others for millennia to come. Words such as inspiring and inspired do not even begin to cover it. Why are you wasting time reading this review when you should be immersing yourself in Last Rites?!