There are three ways to identify a trend, moving averages, price action and trend lines. That is all you need to know.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trendlines Watch few videos every day for the next few months. Then read those books. Practice. And have a journal with insights on what works and what does not. You will be 4x better off, than just by reading a single book.
I don’t think the problem is about Trend lines. It’s a really basic concept that a child can grasp. The problem is about uncertainty. And you won’t master it by reading books. Don’t ask for more than what it can deliver. A trend line will break most of the time. If you’re looking for a holy line, You won’t find it. What are you asking from a trend line ? What’s the purpose of a trend line ? Is it what you’re looking for ? Practice uncertainty. There’s nothing more than ... A swing high and a swing low. You can also duplicate (Channel) them. But again ... What’s the problem ? Requirements ? Does a Trend line meet them ? Are the trade off okay ?
I honestly don’t have a specific book to recommend to you on trend. Like many have said in your post there are a lot of ways to do it and a lot of it is subjective. My only advice is that as you learn about different ways to identify trend, if you find one that makes sense to you use that and stick with it. It’s really consistency of your strategy that will help you. No trend following method is really any better than another. It’s the consistent use of the method you choose that matters. Good luck.
I think you hid a loaded question within your message post. You already know what is a trend and you can very easily find them. The problem is that you're trying to base your trade signal strategy on trendlines and you have not been able to perform well with that. Simply, your question is really about your patterns and how to use them with your trendlines. The only way someone can help you with that is for you to start another thread, trade journal or just a journal where you've outlined whatever you refer to as "my patterns" and whatever you perceive to be a trendlines. Seriously, your patterns could easily be throwing darts at a dart board because you've posted no information about those "my patterns" nor have you shown exactly how they're merged with your trendline analysis. Post lots of annotated charts exactly as you see them on your monitor along with disclosing your trade performance so far with "your patterns" and "trendlines". That's one of the key issues about asking for help online. You need to open yourself to scrutiny about your trade method and trade performance to make any real progress. Most traders will not do that...they will hide critical elements about their trading and they hope others will wave a magical wand to fix things for them via making some kind of recommendation for them. wrbtrader
Like you said . Trends are all over the place. The problem you might be having is assigning proper risk reward to a trend. If the trend you trade is on a small timeframe, your r/r must be different than if you trade from a large timeframe