You can use whatever markup you want. It is not necessarily should be a list. For example, you can use this markup:
<div class="col-sm-6 col-md-4">
<div class="thumbnail">
<div class="caption">
<h4>The Shawshank Redemption</h4>
<p><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-sm btn-block">Action</button></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
All you need to do in this situation, is to point to the element you want to create navigation by. Like that:
$('#target').monolist({
navigateBy: 'h4'
});