It's not really harder, it just has more to it than most languages, like more features and more ways to do things. It's a low-level and high-level language all-in-one, and it's multi-paradigm, meaning it's designed to be used in many different ways. Most modern languages focus on a single paradigm. In my opinion, if you pick up a good C++ book for beginners, it's the best first language and the best way to get into programming. There was a study, I forgot where I read this, but it found that people learn and memorize information better from paper or book pages than they do from a screen, so save the e-books for later and find yourself a good book at the library. C++ is a great language to learn, because it covers a much wider spectrum than other languages do.
Edit: Don't just learn one language. Good programming skills are language independent. After you understand C++, read up on other languages such as python, C#, Basic, Java, and even web dev languages. It's good to know as much as you can.