The best resource is probably your local community college or art center. Nothing beats a class with assignments to force you to practice.

And the internet. Just search for whatever questions you have and you’ll get tons of results. Now that it’s all digital, you can try a bit of everything and see what you like (and ignore what you don’t).

I did take photography classes in college that helped me understand basics.

But I learned a lot more by joining a local photography meetup. They would hire models to practice portrait shoots with and the main people were very helpful. They charged $50-$60 per shoot though.

Fair warning, back then I ran into a lot of photographers who did photography for living and were pretty grumpy about dwindling incomes. Don't let their snarky comments discourage you from going to meetups.

"Understanding Exposure" is good on the absolute basics. However I don't remember if it covers more philosophical stuff like "zoom with your feet", and it probably won't help someone who just straight up keeps forgetting to take off / put on a filter.

I think by far the most distracting feature is zoom. It gives false sense of being able to virtually move around like a drone would. Prime lenses used in aperture priority mode and all automatics off helped me a lot.

Tony & Chelsea Northrup's Youtube channel and their book(s) is something I could recommend. (Not affiliated with them in any way.)