Hey, without knowing where you're at personally, I think in general at the high school level, you should read whatever you want. Pop history isn't perfect, and academics easily pick it apart. In fact, we think it is quite fun and interesting to point out flaws. But it's great that you're reading a lot and reading widely in history. This is by far the most important thing. Keep reading what is interesting for you! I bet pop history was the gateway [history] drug that got most of these people on this subreddit into learning history themselves.

But when you're reading, be suspicious of the author's claims. All books and media, whether popular history or academic history, are flawed. They hold different perspectives and reflect the viewpoint of the author. They are generally trying to convince you of some claim or argument they are making. See if you can spot those claims as you're reading along. Also look for things that you think the author does well, and other things that you didn't like about the book or that the author could do better. Does the author miss anything that you wish had been included? Also! Write notes to yourself in the margins and underline important points (or highlight them if its an ebook). And when you're done with a book, come on AskHistorians, search the title, and see if anything comes up. Google reviews and see what people thought. Someone might point out problems with the book you just read. But they also might tell you why a book is important to historians. Both of those are useful!

If you decide to continue learning history in college, you will learn how to read academic articles and academic books. As you point out, those genres are not designed to be that interesting, except to specialists. They generally are a very specific genre of history called a 'monograph' and they take a little extra time and practice to read/understand/appreciate. The basic idea is that they are actually not meant to be read cover to cover like a popular history. Plus, they are often written at a very high reading level, which can be difficult to understand for high school students. Nevertheless, feel free to try a book if it looks interesting, as you are already doing, but if it is too boring or too hard, stop and find something else. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In college, your professors will help you further improve your reading and writing, and they will show you more about primary sources, historical methods, and historical thinking. A lot of these skills take time to hone. You'll simply need to practice them. With those tools at your disposal, I'm sure you'll soon be picking apart the popular history books you used to read, seeing more clearly both their strengths and weaknesses. I think having a firm foundation in reading history broadly will really help you as you progress.