The way to become a good programmer is to have projects that drive you. So build stuff. You'll find you learn very fast when there is something specific you want to do and you don't know how. So you should read books, certainly, but don't just work your way through books.

It doesn't matter super much what language you learn initially. So if you have some friend who is an expert in another language, you might be better off learning that, then switching to Javascript once you know the basics of programming.