Title Recommendations based on Brett Ashley
An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously-and at great risk-documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
Based on the critically acclaimed manga by Naoki Urasawa, Monster revolves around a central theme: how is evil created and spread? Following the adventures of doctor Kenzo Tenma as he tracks elusive serial killer Johan Liebert, Monster strives to explore the themes of evil and redemption in all their dimensions. Monster is a weighty but thoroughly enjoyable tale for those who enjoy media with philosophical meat.
Narcissistic, brash, and self-destructive "Jimmy Shive-Overly," thinks all relationships are doomed. Cynical, people-pleasing, and stubborn "Gretchen Cutler," knows that relationships aren't for her. So when they meet at a wedding, it's only natural that the two of them go home together and, despite their better judgment, begin to find themselves falling for each other.
Following the manga of the same name,?Sayonara, Zetsubo-Sensei?is an odd, off-beat comedy of the darkest type. With surreal animation and a black sense of humor, it follows the adventures of a suicidal schoolteacher and his mentally unstable students, each a caricature of a topical Japanese social issue. While its dark subject matter may not be for everyone,?Zetsubo's?idiosyncratic style and tone are sure to win over viewers looking for something dark and different.
The film revolves around a mysterious girl named ?aclair who appears before Fairy Tail, the world's most notorious wizard's guild. She lost all of her memories, except for the imperative that she must deliver two Phoenix Stones somewhere. The stones may spell the collapse of the magical world, and Natsu, Lucy, and the rest of the Fairy Tail guild are caught up in the intrigue.
The “Seven Deadly Sins”—a group of evil knights who conspired to overthrow the kingdom of Britannia—were said to have been eradicated by the Holy Knights, although some claim that they still live. Ten years later, the Holy Knights have staged a Coup d'état and assassinated the king, becoming the new, tyrannical rulers of the kingdom. Elizabeth, the king's only daughter, sets out on a journey to find the “Seven Deadly Sins,” and to enlist their help in taking back the kingdom.
To live in Texas is to love football—those who don't just don't know they love it yet. As the coach of the Dillon Panthers, Eric Taylor is out to make his players winners on the field. But his true coaching comes off the field, as his players deal with challenges of dysfunctional families, drugs, injuries, and heartbreak.
Twisted Metal consists of a series of arena-based battles against an increasing number of opponents in increasingly large arenas. These battles culminate in a face-off with the winner of the previous year's competition, Darkside, who drives a large armored car which fires multiple missiles at once. Players can choose one of 12 different vehicles with which to enter combat. Each vehicle has a distinct driver and special move. The controls consist of accelerator, brake, "tight turn" (essentially a handbrake) and turbo on the face buttons, with main weapons and machine gun selection and control on the shoulder buttons. Arenas are populated with weapon pickups to re-supply missile stocks, repair stations for repairing damage to your car, pedestrians, and course stewards armed with either machine guns or missile launchers.
Rose of Versailles is set in France on the brink of upheaval. Poverty racks the streets, the peasants are grossly overtaxed, and the nobles are indifferent. Princess Marie Antoinette has just arrived in Paris, and Oscar Jarjayes's job is to protect her. Born a female but raised as a male because her parents wanted a boy, Oscar is uniquely suited to care for the Princess.
Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it's only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is. Never Let Me Go is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.
The Borgias tells the story of Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI and his family. It follow events from 1492 when Rodrigo is elected pope and concludes in 1507 with Cesare's violent death.
Don Draper is the creative director at Madison Avenue advertising agency Sterling Cooper. As a man who created his own entirely new identity that he successfully sells to the world every day, Don is a natural. But his whole carefully constructed life could come crumbling down if his secret is discovered. Don't be fooled by Mad Men's gorgeous characters and sets; the show is easier on the eyes than it is on the soul.
Upon being sent to live with relatives in the countryside due to an illness, an emotionally distant adolescent girl becomes obsessed with an abandoned mansion and infatuated with a girl who lives there—a girl who may or may not be real.
Norma Bates lives with her son, Norman, at the Bates Motel in White Pine Bay, Oregon. Norman is at an impressionable age, and starting to show interest in girls. But Norma is prone to jealousy, especially when it comes to the only man in the world who she believes truly understands her. She loves her son Norman desperately, but might that end up doing him more harm than good?
