We all started out that way. Effective C++ is a valuable book that takes study, so you're off to a good start.
I still have my first programming book that I bought in the 60s. Now, my library includes most of the books mentioned here. I've skimmed every one of them and read portions of many over and over. I've found that in the long run, they've really helped me in my career. Notice however that I've had half a century to do this reading so just give yourself time.
But I've been in the business for almost 10 years now, mostly learning from people around. I am running out of fiction so maybe this would be a good time investment though.
Several of the books mentioned here are actually a lot more fun to read than the really excellent Effective C++ ... books by Scott Meyers that you mentioned reading.
This isn't a criticism of Effective C++, just the opposite. Better than anyone, Scott Meyers makes many of the very technical intricacies of C++ understandable and I think every professional C++ programmer could benefit from understanding the issues he explains. Nevertheless, I find the book more of a chore to get through than most of the books mentioned here.
You might find a random CS subject really interesting and get motivated to read up on it. I done this over and over.
Personal projects are a good way to get interested. In the past personal projects have caused me to do independent study of cryptography, hash tables, compilers, operating systems, machine learning, AI, etc. I've never been interested in game development or GUI programming, but recently I decided I would write a simple chess playing program just for fun. I'm currently stuck building the GUI for it, but it's caused me to study game engines and GUI frameworks.
I still have my first programming book that I bought in the 60s. Now, my library includes most of the books mentioned here. I've skimmed every one of them and read portions of many over and over. I've found that in the long run, they've really helped me in my career. Notice however that I've had half a century to do this reading so just give yourself time.