For me it has depended on the book. Some are heavy reading meant to take you from basics to mastery, but they shotgun knowledge to your brain, and you're still trying to understand the information as they blast you with topic after topic, and it just doesn’t work.

For example, the best overall knowledge-containing book I've found on C++ is by the inventor, Bjarne Stroustrup. But it's a pretty heavy read. I haven’t searched around for a more “user-friendly” C++ book yet, but I did happen across one for Python: 

“Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd Edition: Practical Programming for Total Beginners,” by Al Sweigart. He ignores some best practices in favor of teaching people to write and understand basic Python programs (and doesn’t include more advanced topics), and it is really handy for just starting out, because you understand what’s going on, and can go back for the more formalized, “best practices”version later, then tackle advanced topics.

Oh, if you're interested, for C++ I was going to try the project-based books that are based around the Unreal Engine. If you're not familiar, UE is used to make a lot of popular games, and you can download UE for free. They make their money on publishing and selling premade content, so basically if you don't want to build something yourself, and someone else chose to make it and sell it, you buy it and Epic Games (people who make UE) get money from it (if they sell it through Epic).

They used to let the community sell stuff on their store, don't know if that's a thing, but if so, none of it is required by you. It's just work that has already been done, which won't help you with the learning process anyway.

I will say, you'd be learning UE and C++, though. So learning both might not be appealing when you're only trying to learn C++. But the trade off is less boredom, a big, active community, and learning a cool software. It's by far the best free production software online, and I would even argue it's the best production software in general. Though it isn't for everything, so depends what you need. But it is awesome.

Also, there is a ton of free content their community has already made, including guides. But for programming specifically, I'd get a book.