The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Greenidge, Kaitlyn. Libertie. Workman Publishing, 2021.

Kaitlyn Greenidge's novel Libertie is written from the main character Libertie Sampson's first person point of view and in the past tense. The novel opens in 1860s King County, New York and traces Libertie's coming of age before, during, and after the American Civil War.

Libertie lived in Kings County with her mother Cathy. Her mother was a doctor and seemed like a miracle worker to Libertie. Because her father died while Cathy was still pregnant, Libertie never knew her father. However, she had learned that she had been named for her father's longtime dream of freedom for Black Americans.

Cathy primarily ran a homeopathy practice out of their home. She also helped a friend named Madame Elizabeth smuggle enslaved Blacks from the south into the north. One spring, Madame Elizabeth brought a man named Mr. Ben to Kings County. He arrived dead in a coffin. Cathy resurrected him, fascinating her young daughter.

Not long after his resurrection, Ben proved to be unstable. Though he had won his freedom, he was enslaved to the memory of his deceased lover, Daisy. When his sister Hannah arrived in town and discovered how unwell her brother was, she blamed Cathy for not taking care of him. Desperate to prove herself, Cathy devised a new remedy to heal Ben of his heartbreak. The remedy worked, but only temporarily. Ben soon returned to heavy drinking, wandering town insisting that he had seen Daisy. Shortly thereafter, Ben threw himself into the river, and died.

Having seen what Ben's love for Daisy did to him, Libertie became afraid of caring for another. She also decided that she would never become a doctor. She saw how her mother's obsession with caring for others had similarly enslaved her.

When the Civil War broke out, Libertie learned a lot about American society and politics, particularly through her mother's women's group, the Ladies' Intelligence Society. Not long after the war ended, they opened a hospital designed expressly for Black women. Cathy betrayed her friends, however, when she started serving white women, too. She was light-skinned, and so the white patients accepted her care. Cathy's decision perplexed and angered Libertie, causing a fracture in their relationship. Shortly thereafter, Cathy sent Libertie away to Cunningham College in Ohio.

Libertie decided that she would reinvent herself in Ohio. She would create an identity independent of her mother and her hometown. However, life in Ohio proved more difficult than expected. Libertie could not even focus on her schoolwork. When she met two singers, named Louisa and Experience, she felt a rare sense of belonging. She soon failed out of school and orchestrated a singing benefit in Kings County. On her voyage back east with her friends, Libertie discovered that Louisa and Experience were in an intimate relationship. This discovery amplified Libertie's loneliness.

When she returned to Kings County, Libertie was careful not to tell her mother about flunking out of school. She changed the subject to her mother's homeopathy student, Emmanuel. Emmanuel was immediately enamored with Libertie. Libertie gave in to his advances, longing for a romance of her own. When Cathy discovered that Emmanuel had proposed to Libertie, she was furious. She did not want her to give up becoming a doctor for a man. Realizing that she had failed at being a good daughter and becoming a doctor, Libertie thought she could perhaps be a good wife.

Three days after they were married, Libertie and Emmanuel moved to Haiti to live with Emmanuel's family. Almost immediately upon arriving, Libertie felt homesick. Though she loved Emmanuel and was desperate to reinvent herself once more, she missed her mother. With time, Libertie adjusted to life in Haiti. However, she found her husband's family strange and their home unwelcoming. She became increasingly frustrated the more distant and distracted by work her husband became. While pregnant with twins, she began to realize that she had no freedom at all. After giving birth, she reestablished contact with her mother and decided to move home.